The man tipped to lead Australia's union movement says any attempt to revive the Howard government's Work Choices regulations will be met with vigorous opposition.
Dave Oliver, the national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, is expected to replace the outgoing Jeff Lawrence as head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in May.
"If there is any attempt by Tony Abbott to heed some of the calls within his own party or some of the elements of the employer organisations to bring it (Work Choices) back, it will be meet with vigorous opposition and a significant campaign," Mr Oliver told ABC Television on Sunday.
He said submissions to the Fair Work Act inquiry indicated bosses wanted a return to the previous coalition government's industrial relations regime.
"Employer submissions are now talking about removing fair dismissal rights for small to medium enterprises - that's Work Choices," he said.
"Employers talking about removing bargaining rights to collective bargain - that's Work Choices."
Work Choices is cited as one of the major contributors to voters dumping the Howard government in November 2007 after a unions-led campaign against the legislation.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has previously declared Work Choices "dead, buried and cremated".
Mr Oliver said the unions would like the government to address access to arbitration in industrial disputes between workers and business.
"It makes sense in any kind of dispute you need to have the ability of some sort of umpire to come again to actually adjudicate to make a decision," he said.
He said employers, the government and the union should be able to sit down to deal with the structural changes in the national economy caused by factors such as a high local currency.
Productivity was a key area to deal with such changes, but it was also about creating jobs, Mr Oliver said.
"The high performance workplace is one of collaboration," he said.
"The high performance workplace is where we have had investment in skills, innovation, technology, capital investment, not the path Tony Abbott and some employers want to take us down when they talk about productivity being clawing back smokos breaks, clawing back workers conditions."
He said the ACTU would be willing to work with a conservative government but history was not kind to that collaboration.
"Our previous experience of 11 years of a Howard government the door was slammed shut in our face," he said.
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