We hope that holiday trading is going well for our retail community during these critical closing weeks.
Last week saw a bittersweet result in the ongoing industrial relations battle in Canberra.
The Federal Government made an eleventh-hour deal to split its Closing Loopholes Bill resulting in a number of its contentious measures being passed on the last sitting day for parliament, without adequate scrutiny.
The ARA was one of the first groups to call for this bill to be split and so we welcomed the government’s move to bring forward the uncontested elements of its bill – including positive measures like stronger protections in the workplace for victim-survivors of domestic violence.
However, we also raised concerns that the expedition of changes to labour hire rearrangements and union delegate rights, without proper due diligence.
You can read our media release here and our joint release with other employer groups here.
We have been very vocal about the need for such contentious measures to have had the opportunity to be scrutinised by the parliament.
We remain concerned about those elements of the government’s reform agenda postponed until next year, including changes to the definition of casual work. We will be vigilantly monitoring that situation and provide further updates to members in the new year.
Earlier this week saw the introduction of a new positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. In line with our commitment to gender equality, we have been consistently supportive of these changes and have education programs in place to help our members understand their obligations.
We are conscious that our retail community continues to navigate the largest set of workplace reforms in decades. These impacts remain front-of-mind in our advocacy with the government, opposition and crossbench and we remind you of our employment relations hotline membership@retail.org.au or 1300 368 041 and ongoing information and education programs to assist your teams with this.
Of course, all of this change takes place alongside our efforts to prepare for future challenges such as the rise of artificial intelligence, and cyber security concerns alongside the impact of sustainability requirements on our operations. These topics are strongly on our ARA agenda for next year and take central stage at our ARA Leaders Forum in February. If you haven’t secured your ticket yet, you can register now or take advantage of our special group offers.
