Minister for Industrial Relations Sophie Cotsis has delivered an address to the Industrial Relations Society of NSW annual conference in Wollongong where the theme is ‘A new hope: The next golden era of industrial relations’.
It’s a theme which encapsulates the spirit the NSW Government has taken over the past year delivering on the following:
- Scrapped the wages cap.
- Delivered public sector workers their biggest pay rise in over a decade.
- Tackled the scourge of silicosis by leading a national ban on engineered stone.
- Established a framework for a silica worker register to track and care for workers exposed to silica dust.
- From July 1 the re-established NSW Industrial Court will provide workers with access to workplace justice and improved workplace safety with specialist judges.
- Started the Respect at Work Advisory Council.
- Established a cooperative way of bargaining for the state’s public sector workers.
- Increased penalties for serious WHS breaches.
- Closed loopholes that allow businesses to insure against WHS fines as a cost-of-doing-business.
- Toughened criminal penalties for assaulting retail workers.
- Passed laws to ensure union and business representation on the icare board and put injured workers at the centre of care.
- Making SafeWork NSW into a standalone regulator
The NSW Government has taken enormous strides to fundamentally improve workers’ rights over the past year delivering on key election promises and providing more for employees across the state.
The Minister told the conference unions and public sector employers are already undertaking mutual gains bargaining training to encourage cooperative and constructive bargaining.
She added: “Working together we can move to a more cooperative approach to wage negotiations based on trust and good faith.
“This will ensure that the best outcomes are available to the people of NSW.”
In the coming months the NSW Government will fulfill other election promises:
- Legislating an industrial manslaughter offence.
- Reforms to give gig workers rights at work and access to the IRC.
- Ensuring local government workers have greater protections.
- Introduce a portable long service leave scheme for community sector workers.
Minister Cotsis told the conference the Minns government has made the repair of industrial relations and work health and safety a key priority of our policy agenda and it will continue to build a better NSW.
