<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>341094</docID> <postdate>2025-03-26 06:23:28</postdate> <headline>Business leaders blast big change coming for workers</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-242631" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/suheyl-burak-N85JOkU3DW0-unsplash-resized-e1634166896228.jpg" alt="" width="1134" height="771" /></p> <caption>Labor wants to stop businesses, like hair salons, from imposing non-compete clauses on workers.</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">By <strong>Tess Ikonomou</strong> and <strong>Jacob Shteyman</strong> in Canberra</span></p> <p><strong>Business bosses are furious about a "heavy handed" measure designed to help workers take better paid jobs or start their own companies.</strong></p> <p>The workplace change contained in the federal budget means workers earning less than $175,000 cannot be "handcuffed" to their jobs.</p> <p>The change is subject to legislation and expected to take force in two years.</p> <p>Businesses will be unable to impose non-compete clauses, which stop or restrict people from moving to a competing employer, on their workers.</p> <p>Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said the change was unnecessary.</p> <p>"It's a heavy-handed measure," he told AAP.</p> <p>"This is something that really will affect particularly a lot of smaller businesses who invest in time to train their staff to pass on their intellectual property.</p> <p>"They then face the risk that if those staff move on, they can go to a competitor, and very quickly you're at a competitive disadvantage, in many cases, if you're just a small business."</p> <p>Research out of the US, where the Federal Trade Commission has moved to ban non-competes entirely, suggests it would improve business start-up rates and would affect several industries including finance, health and beauty.</p> <p>Leanne Boase is a nurse practitioner in Melbourne's outer north as well as chief executive of the Australian College of Nurse Practitioners.</p> <p>When she left a GP clinic she co-owned, her former practice partner tried to prevent her working at rival clinics within 25km for 10 years.</p> <p>"I wasn't free to actually move into a different practice location, and my patients were not free to have the choice to continue to see me as a provider, and that's what worried me," she told AAP.</p> <p>"Invisible handcuffs are there, and that's really unfair."</p> <p>More than three million Australians are covered by such clauses, including childcare workers, hair stylists, and construction employees.</p> <p>The Labor government is also considering expanding the ban on non-competes to people earning more than $175,000 - the threshold defined as high income under Fair Work legislation.</p> <p>The changes could add $5 billion, or 0.2 per cent of GDP, to the economy each year, according to Productivity Commission modelling.</p> <p>Non-compete clauses have been found to drive down wages by an average of $2700 for workers, according to analysis by research institute e61.</p> <p>The government will also clamp down on loopholes in competition law that allow businesses using "no-poach" agreements to stop workers from being hired by competitors.</p> <p>The crackdown will also extend to employers making anti-competitive deals that cap workers' pay and  conditions, without their knowledge or consent.</p> </body>