The submission also claims that the procedure for unions to obtain a secret ballot order from Fair Work Australia has become a "form-filling exercise".

"The ease of getting secret ballot orders has effectively encouraged unions to apply for them on the quite rational basis that by voting for protected industrial action, employees arm themselves and their bargaining representatives with a cudgel to be used tactically and at will," the association says.

Shipping Australia chief executive Llew Russell agreed that the Fair Work Act's objective of facilitating greater productivity in enterprise bargaining was not being achieved under the current framework."In the shipping industry, protected-action ballot-order applications have become routine and are routinely granted."

"It appears to SAL that unions are using the act to include a wide array of matters and agreements that could be seen as increasingly related to promoting union rights and privileges, as opposed to the wages and conditions for employees or boosting productivity at the enterprise level," he says in his submission.

Local ship owners are the target of the government's proposed coastal shipping reforms to revitalise the local shipping industry. The reforms propose an exemption from company tax for Australian-flagged ships and a crackdown on cheaper foreign ships operating along the nation's "blue highway".

They also include a "compact" between unions and shippers to deliver productivity improvements and efficiency gains.