Stage set for jobs and skills summit

With wage growth falling well behind skyrocketing inflation, the mechanism used by workers to collectively negotiate better wages and conditions - enterprise bargaining - has come under the microscope.

Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus will focus on workers' bargaining powers as the government flags potential enterprise bargaining reforms.

The unions are pushing for multi-employer or sector bargaining, which would allow multiple workplaces to make an agreement together.

"Workers' bargaining power has been smashed," she told the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday.

"That's why we have a problem, a huge problem, with wages growth and unless we address that issue, that is not going to change.

"It should be simple, it should be fair, to give the workers the bargaining power they need to get pay rises again."

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott says there needed to be a greater focus on driving innovation and productivity to boost wages.

But the head of the peak business body agreed with the ACTU the enterprise bargaining system needed an overhaul to ensure workers were paid more.

"Sally and I are absolutely on a unity ticket that we want people to be paid more and those wage increases sustained," Ms Westacott told the ABC's Insiders.

"When done well, when you look at the data and averages on wages, people on enterprise agreements get substantially more money."

Both peak bodies want to strengthen the better off overall test and streamline the bargaining process.

"This is the crucial thing: When the parties agree, when they have negotiated in good faith, when they have followed the processes, that the Fair Work Commission doesn't try to re-write and micro manage that agreement," Ms Westacott said.

"Make sure the people who haven't been party to the agreement can't come in later and blow everything up."

Enterprise bargaining reform will be one of the key focuses of the upcoming summit, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says.

"There is universal agreement that the enterprise bargaining system isn't working as intended," she told the ABC.

"This is really about how we set up the employment framework for a modern economy with new challenges, and make sure it protects the rights of working people but also allows business to flourish as well."

Migration policy has also emerged as a key issue ahead of the summit, with the lifting of skilled migration caps floated as a solution to ease labour shortages.

Training domestic workers for the "jobs of the future" is a priority for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with nurses, chefs, early childhood teachers, construction workers, tech staff and electricians among the professions experiencing dire shortages.

Bolstering the participation of women in the workforce and reducing the gender pay gap will also feature.

While the summit agenda promises to address a variety of issues, Australian National University's Robert Breunig says there has been some notable absences in the conversation leading up to the event.

He says tax reform is missing from the agenda as a tool to create jobs and incentives for people to work.

He recommends replacing the complicated set of offsets designed to cut tax paid by lower income earners with an earned income tax credit.

Under this system, this group would be paid "negative tax" for every dollar they make until a threshold and then start paying "positive tax".

"That way, you're incentivising work, you're making even low wage work become more valuable because you're topping up people's wages through the tax system," Prof Breunig said

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will not attend the employment summit this week but Nationals leader David Littleproud plans to sit in to ensure rural and regional interests are represented.

It will be held in Canberra on Thursday and Friday.

Australian Associated Press