Industrial relations is becoming an increasingly important issue in Western Australia as highlighted by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s quarterly economic compass.
The March quarter report identified WA as the leading state when it comes to days lost, losing 76.9 working days per 1000 employees in the year to December 2004.
That figure was much higher than the next state, New South Wales, and was more than two-thirds higher than the national average. It is the second year in succession WA has headed the category.
However, Master Builders Association of WA construction director Kim Richardson believed the figures significantly understated industrial action in the building and construction industry.
“At best those figures are unreliable for our purposes. We are aware of stoppages on construction sites that go unreported by these kinds of statistics,” he said.
Despite the housing and construction industry in Queensland experiencing a large number of stoppages due to an isolated incident, Mr Richardson believed WA was the “strike capital” of Australia.
He believed the Federal Government should use its majority in the Senate to amend industrial relations framework by establishing a unitary industrial relations system that will cover up to 90 per cent of Australian workers.
“We have an industrial relations framework that provides no adequate protection in the building and construction industry,” Mr Richardson said.
Along with signs of industrial unrest in the CCIWA report, there was a strong jobs market in WA, attributable to the performance of the local economy.
The report showed signs of wage pressures had started to emerge in WA, with average weekly earnings increasing by 2.8 per cent to $981.10 per week between August and November last year.
While noting this figure could be quite volatile, the report said the labour price index showed a similar trend of rising wages in WA compared to the rest of the country, growing 4.1 per cent in the year to December 2004. CCIWA chief economist Nicky Cusworth said last month that although the state’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.6 per cent in March, it was due more to a rise in labour force participation than to stable labour market conditions, as more people took up an increased range of job opportunities.
Mr Richardson agreed that wage pressures were finely balanced in the building and construction industry at present, with labour clearly in short supply.
“Currently, we are seeing any spare capacity in labour, particularly tradesmen, in the commercial construction sector being absorbed by the resources sector, where they are able to earn a lot more,” he said.
“In the residential sector, it is bricklayers that are in short supply.”
