A peak business group has rejected a union demand that workers returning from parental leave have the right to their old job at reduced hours.
Unions also want casual workers to have the same right to a full-time job, ending what they say is the second-class treatment of non-permanent workers.
But the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says small business doesn't have the flexibility to provide such guarantees.
The ACTU on Tuesday released details of its submission to the Productivity Commission review of the workplace system, proposing new protections for those returning from parental leave.
ACCI boss Kate Carnell argued 93 per cent of business employed fewer than 20 staff, and it was hard for them to be flexible all the time.
"They try really hard because you want your people back," she told the National Press Club in Canberra during a debate with ACTU President Ged Kearney.
"You try hard but you just can't guarantee it."
Ms Kearney said unions were not seeking a guaranteed right to a part-time job, just due consideration to the request.
"There is no right to sit down with your employer to say: `Why not?', she said.
The pair clashed repeatedly on penalty rates, which are being examined as part of the commission's review.
Ms Carnell cited high youth unemployment rates when questioning the penalty rates in the hospitality and retail sectors.
You needed to sell "an awful lot of cups of coffee" to pay a barista $50 an hour to work public holidays, she said.
Some businesses would be forced to shut their doors on weekends and holidays unless something was done about penalty rates, she said.
That would deprive people who wanted to work on those days an opportunity to do so.
"Let's be fair - two-and-a-half times zero is still zero."
But Ms Kearney said there was no evidence reducing wages increased job numbers.
"However you dress it up ... you're asking the lowest paid workers in our economy to take a pay cut," she said.
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