Whereas for those agreements already in force, annual wage growth was flat:

Centre for Future Work labour economist Alison Pennington expects enterprise agreement coverage to increase if the federal government’s industrial relations omnibus bill is passed in 2021. She says the legislation is likely to result in more non-union enterprise agreements and will help to push wage growth even lower:

“Based on the experience of EAs under the Work Choices era, when similar measures were in place, we can expect a resurgence of non-union EAs if the government’s omnibus bill passes”…

“Further expansion in the number of lower-wage non-union EAs, will ‘dilute’ the stronger wage outcomes delivered through all EAs. Far from securing future wage increases, enterprise bargaining could be repurposed to reduce wages.”

Research by the Centre for Future Work found that wage increases in non-union private sector EAs had been 1 percentage point lower than union covered agreements since 2010.

She said more than half of all non-union EAs approved in the past decade did not have quantifiable wage increases, instead linking wage increases to CPI, minimum wage decisions or “most often” employer discretion.

Just another salvo in the Coalition’s endless war on workers.

Industrial relations omnibus bill to drive wages lower