Lots has been said recently in the press about enterprise agreement making and the approval process by the Fair Work Commission (FWC). In short, the numbers of agreements being made is down and approval times are “long”. The graph below, recently cited in an AFR article, demonstrates a possible link between approval times slowing and
The data that demonstrates the state of play of enterprise bargaining
In a previous blog, we’ve mentioned the decline of enterprise bargaining in Australia.
Some data to support this follows in this blog. Both agreement numbers and employees covered by in-term agreements are in decline. Point 7 and 8 highlight the challenges faced by parties making agreements and the Fair Work Commission in processing agreement
Collective bargaining: the outlook
In yesterday’s blog, we commented on the state of play in enterprise bargaining in Australia.
So what’s the outlook for enterprise bargaining in Australia? Here’s the top 7:
- Collective bargaining remains unlikely to be the answer for productivity gains – as has been the case for some time. Nor will it deliver the across-the-board wages
The collective bargaining state of play (AKA risk management for employers)
A consistent theme in recent years for both employers and unions is that enterprise bargaining is broken.
The genesis of enterprise bargaining in the mid 1990’s lay in its potential to generate productivity gains at a time when workplaces were strangled by terms and conditions set for whole industries and occupations, divorced from the particular
5 years on – in human resources, industrial relations and workplace health and safety law
On 12 December 2013 Seyfarth Shaw announced our Australian offices were officially open for business. Today marks five years since those doors opened.
What better way to reflect than to ask ourselves, what have been the biggest changes in our specialist areas of law over those five years?
“It has become increasingly difficult to make
7 proven ingredients in successful enterprise bargaining
At a recent industry conference, a keynote speaker talked about great outcomes a number of our clients achieved in a critical enterprise bargaining round.
One observation was the importance of “patience“ – with which we would wholeheartedly agree.
So it got us thinking about ingredients for success.
Here are some key ones, borrowed from our
Bargaining levers – a legal pendulum
Within eight days of each other Bill Shorten and ACTU head, Sally McManus, have called for changes to the enterprise bargaining regime which is a central feature of Labor’s own Fair Work Act. Whilst we will no doubt hear more on this these statements would be chilling to many an employer who regards the current
Enterprise bargaining: can employers still grow a forest from a few seeds?
Employers will need to be prepared for close scrutiny of enterprise agreements that use a “small group” or “seed group” approach, following a number of recent developments in enterprise bargaining. The recent Federal Court decision in CFMEU v One Key sounds a cautionary note for the “seed group” strategy that some employers have been using
Bargaining power in favour of employers – really?
According to the Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations, Brendan O’Connor, (collective) bargaining power has tilted too much in favour of employers. This would rankle many an employer who, amongst other things, would feel the intense irony of Labor asserting that its workplace law, The Fair Work Act (The Act) carries employer bias.
A key tenet
Proposal to outlaw “unrepresentative” enterprise agreements – when will an enterprise agreement be undone?
On Wednesday 18 October, the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations Brendan O’Connor foreshadowed amending the bargaining regime in the Fair Work Act to outlaw so-called “sham agreements”.
The target of the changes seems to be enterprise agreements that are voted on by one group of employees, but have the potential also to cover a much broader group, or to cover a similar group who will be employed in a different geographic location. The Shadow Minister referred to these situations as employers “gaming the system”.
However, we note that the Fair Work Act already contains a number of safeguards to prevent “gaming the system”, including that agreements are genuinely made, that employees who vote to make the agreement are “fairly chosen”, and employees are not coerced to vote or not vote for an agreement.
While we do not have the benefit of any detail (such as a draft Bill) – there are some things to be said about the potential effects of the foreshadowed changes.
The concept put forward by Shadow Minister O’Connor in his speech would allow an agreement that has been made, to be challenged and potentially reversed on the basis that the employees who made the agreement are not “representative” of those who will be covered by it.
This raises a number of important questions including:
- What factors are to be taken into account in determining representativeness?
- Which characteristics of the employment will be given priority over others in determining representativeness?
- Who could challenge an agreement that has been made? For example:
- Could a competitor union to that which represents the employees use the provisions to unwind an agreement that has been made?
- Could another company challenge the approval, with the goal of ensuring the employer is hindered in achieving competitive terms and conditions for its business?
These questions may not be answered unless and until the provisions are enacted and tested by the many varied situations real life throws up.
Our initial impression is that any amendments that allow agreements that have been made to be effectively “undone” could cause enormous problems that go well beyond the immediate issue being addressed. This exemplifies the danger of focussing on first order consequences, at the expense of equally (sometimes more) important second and third order consequences. By trying to plug a perceived gap in the legislation, these amendments have the potential to open up a new form of “litigation sport” – where agreements that have been made are subject to lengthy legal challenges and then undone much later down the track. There are many industrial reasons – which have nothing to do with the supposed problem being addressed – which might provide motivation for such challenges.
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