Agreements under the Fair Work Act
The Access HR Team | 1 Sep 2009 1:27 PM
The types of agreements employers can enter into with their employees, and in some cases, the way in which the current agreements operate have changed under the Fair Work Act.
The Fair Work Act places collective bargaining at the heart of the new workplace relations systems, rather than individual workplace agreements (AWA) under WorkChoices regime. Workplace agreements will now be described as ‘enterprise agreements’. Enterprise agreements need to be approved by the Fair Work Act.
Types of agreements under the new legislation are:
- Individual Transitional Employment Agreements (ITEA)
- Can be used by employers with at least 1 employee on an AWA
- May only be used until December 2009
- Employee Collective Agreements
- Can only be made in relation to a single business
- Union Collective Agreements
- Can only be made in relation to a single business
- Union Greenfields Agreements
- Available between employer and a union representing at least 1 of the workers to be employed when a new business is starting up
- Multiple Business Agreements
- An employee or union collective agreement may relate to more than 1 business (provided special approval is obtained from Fair Work Australia)
Good Faith Bargaining will be a feature in the new system. This will require:
- Attending and participating in meetings at reasonable times;
- Disclosing relevant information (subject to commercial in confidence);
- Responding to proposals in a timely fashion;
- Giving genuine consideration to proposals of other parties; and
- Refraining from capricious or unfair conduct.
The good faith bargaining requirements do not however require that a bargaining representative make concessions during the bargaining for the agreement or a bargaining representative reach agreement on the terms that are to be included in the agreement.
From 1 January 2010 the Better Off Overall Test will be applied to ensure that employees covered by an agreement are better off overall in comparisons to the applicable award. This has superseded the ‘no disadvantage test’.
Source: VECCI
Workplace Relations Update - Jackson McDonald Lawyers
Autumn 2009 Newsletter – Pointon Partners
Fair Work Act 2009