The PIAA advocates for changes to Australia’s industrial relations (IR) laws on behalf of its members.
“Our members, many of whom are small businesses, have been crying out for simple, flexible, competitive, productive and fair industrial relations laws. IR laws which take into account their needs as small business operators will help their businesses’ improve productivity, increase investment and create more jobs”, says Sam Puri Industrial Advocate for PIAA.
The PIAA remains focused on advocating for its members and is proposing 5 sensible changes to Australia’s workplace laws, including making our current unfair dismissal laws operate more smoothly.
- Change the definition of a small business from 15 to 25 employees – which expands the protections afforded to small businesses in the Fair Work Act.
- Protect Small Businesses who have properly completed the checklist and comply with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code from spurious unfair dismissal claims
- Cap the maximum compensation payable in an unfair dismissal case to 13 weeks remuneration, as larger amounts often result in the business shutting down, and remaining employees losing their jobs
- Primary remedy for an unfair dismissal claim should not be reinstatement for a small business.
- Introduce caps on compensation across broader action/breach claims and split the maximum compensation payable into bands based on small and large business size.
The PIAA is in contact with the office of IR Minister, Christian Porter and has provided a number of practical, incremental IR reforms targeted towards its SME sized members. It is small business that is the lifeblood of the Australian economy, this includes those in the print, packaging and visual communications sector.