Industry Bargaining – The Impossible Dream?

Bill Shorten recently stated that Australia's workplace system needs to be "renovated" for the future and industry-wide bargaining – the ability to bring multiple employers across an industry or an industry sector under the same agreement – has caught the particular attention of commentators as one area for potential radical legislative reform.

What has been largely missing from the ALP's reform proposal to date is considered analysis as to why the facility for industry bargaining already available in the current system has remained largely unutilised for nearly a decade. In this article, we look more closely at the current system and some of the challenges facing regulators installing industry bargaining into our workplace relations framework.