Enterprise agreements in the private sector could almost disappear by 2030, with new research showing a dramatic downturn in collective bargaining.
A report by the left-leaning think tank The Australia Institute's Centre For Future Work shows the number of enterprise agreements in private businesses has collapsed by 46 per cent in the past five years.
In 2013, 19 per cent of private sector workers were covered by an enterprise agreement but that figure fell to 12 per cent in 2017.
"The number of employees covered has dropped by 34 per cent since end-2013 (peak year), a decline of 662,461 employees," the report found.
Economist Alison Pennington, who wrote the report, said the accelerated collapse of enterprise bargaining in the private sector has been a key cause of slow wage growth.
"When workers have no collective voice or collective bargaining power, they have no chance of successfully negotiating better wage increases from their employers," Ms Pennington said.
The research found current trends in renewals, new agreements, and terminations continue, fewer than 1700 agreements would survive to 2030.
That would leave just two per cent of private sector workers covered by a collective agreement.
"It is no exaggeration to conclude that collective bargaining in private businesses will go extinct in coming years if these devastating trends are not reversed," Ms Pennington said.
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