Industrial Relations Act 1979
Review the Industrial Relations Act 1979 and use your own words to explain the provisions related to:
The Industrial Relations Act 1979 is an important Act in WA that covers all Industrial Relations interests related to employer and employees. Industrial Relations interact providing solutions to all issues involving awards, claims, contractual benefits denied, industrial agreements or unfair dismissals. This act indicates the appropriate way to behave according to the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission when there is an issue to be solved (Employment Law Centre of WA, 2013).
- Awards
Industrial Awards are an essential part of the Industrial relations process (Jones and Martain, 2014) as it is indicated in the Industrial Relations Act, Part 2, Division 2A. Awards are defined as legally involving agreements that cannot be broken related to documents from industrial tribunals that determines the industrial requirements and conditions and minimum wages for employees integrated in that sector (Jones and Martain, 2014).
Cititores is an important component in the retail sector in WA. The General Retail industry Award 2010, needs to be applied considering all Citistores employees. Also, the same financial reward needs to be applied to all employees in the retail sector in WA.
- Collective agreements and good faith bargaining
Collective agreements relate to the procedures when employers and employees find the best way to make agreements about terms and conditions for them, considering good faith deal to proceed with this kind of negotiation. The Industrial Relations Act 1979, Part 2, Division 2B, says that collective questions and reflections are motivated at the workplace, supporting to create business agreements that can provide more chances for better employment conditions. Under this section, an organization might act on the behalf of the workforce whose employment is planned to be subject to a projected collective agreement in situations where at least one of the employees, on behalf of all other employees, have asked for the organization’s response in writing, and that employee is anassociate of the organization or is qualified to become one (Creighton & Forsyth, 2012). A bargaining agent is a person who is appointed by a negotiating party for being a bargaining agent for a proposed collective agreement. The person is an agent if a copy of the appointment is present with the negotiating party and the appointment is not dismissed (Morley & Stephenson, 2015). Under section 12 of the Legal Profession Act 2008, authorisation of a bargaining agent includes only to offer advice and other services that are related to the bargaining for a collective agreement.Initiation of the bargaining process is carried out by a group of employees or any employer providing each other a negotiating party and filing of a written notice in the office of the Registrar by complying with subsection (3)
Minimum Conditions of Employment Act 1993
Employers and employees should start these kinds of negotiations seeking for an appropriate enterprise agreement covering both sides. In this act, it is absolutely necessary that collective agreements be in accordance with the 10 Minimum National Employment Standards procedures (Jones and Martain, 2014). The National Employment Standards (NES) constitutes of 10 minimum employment rights that employees are bound to receive. NES and the national minimum wage constitute the minimum entitlements for Australianemployees (Fair Work Ombudsman, 2017).The 10 minimum NES entitlements are as follows:
- Notice of termination and redundancy pay
- Maximum weekly hours
- Parental leave and related entitlements
- Requests for flexible working arrangements
- Annual leave
- Long service leave
- Community service leave
- Public holidays
- Personal carers leave and compassionate leave
- Fair Work Information Statement
NES covers every employees under the national workplace relations system irrespective of the registered agreement, award or employment contract that applies.
- Unions
The Industrial Relations Act 1979, Part 2, Division 3B, says that any employee, being a member of any union can be chosen by them as their representative during some negotiations. The union can represent the industrial matters related to the employee considering the work that needs to be developed during the agreement that needs to be done. All employees are free to cancel the union services and the union will not provide more services to these employees (Jones and Martain, 2014).
Review the Minimum Conditions of Employment Act 1993 and explain the key issues this legislation addresses, in your own words.
The Minimum Conditions of Employment Act 1993 is very important to all employers and employees in WA. It offers protection for all staff related to the safety net (Minimum Conditions of Employment Act, 1993). For that reason every award, employee contract or agreements should be aligned with the basic conditions of employment according to the law.
When an employer tries to provide an employee with an inappropriate work contract that does not follow the law and these minimum conditions, such as no more than two weeks annual leave, then there is a chance the employment contract can be legally affected.
The minimal conditions are:
Moderate hours of work: moderate hours of work are based on the maximum hours of work being reasonable, as the act says. All employees cannot be summoned to work more 38 hours per week, but if there is an industrial agreement for that including extra hours, it should be considered acceptable (Fair Work Act, 2009).
Minimum rates: Have particular rates of remuneration calculated per hour and per week, considering the employee’s level or age
Paid leave: It is calculated by employers using the employees’ rights for pay leave. Also there is unpaid leave, such as family care, voluntary work, studies, illness, injury, etc.
Equal Opportunity Act 1984
Minimum conditions for employment changes with significant effect, and redundancy: employers needs to communicate to all employees if there is any change for the redundancy. This act does not establish rules to employers, in regards to informing employees after a decision has been made and considering the fact that it could cause some damage to them.
Keeping of records:Employers must control who has access to the employees’ records, and all requests to consult employees’ records should be made in writing.
There are employer rules about how to grant leaves, wages, redundancies and procedure about record maintaining requisites established in the Minimum Conditions of Employment Act 1993. (Department of Commerce, 2016).
Review the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (WA) and explain the key issues this legislation addresses, in your own words.
Nowadays, the commonwealth laws and some states are forbidding any kind of discrimination and harassment in the work environment. For every company, employers and employees should make sure that their actions are in accordance with the relevant legislation when they are developing their professional activities. It can include selection and recruitment procedures, all services or provision of goods (Department of Commerce, 2016). The Equal Employment Opportunity Act 1984 is considered an anti discriminatory law, and all employees and employersin WA should be aware about it.
This act has some objectives, such as:
- Completely remove any kind of discrimination against individuals related to gender, sexual option, marital status, race, pregnancy, religion, family responsibility, age, level of education, etc.
If Citistores makes a job advertisement that approaches only candidates with private school education on their resume, then this scenario could be discriminating against people who do not have private school education on their resume anddoes not comply with what the act says.
- Completely remove sexual and racial harassment in the work environment.
These two kinds of harassment consider any type of comments or how internal or external clients behave among each other, as well as inappropriate comments or behaviour related to race.
- Promoting understanding and acceptance in the community in regards to equality of women and men.
Gender equality in the work environment should be monitored by companies as this topic is very important. In the retail scenario, it is normal to have more female employees due to the flexibility that this industry provides. Regardless of this, it is fundamental that employers understand the reason and make sure that all selection and recruitment procedures are conducted by both genders in a fair way.
- Promoting understanding and acceptance in the community
Nowadays, for all types of organisations to have and keep a good reputation through their community members, it is essential the organisation opens its door to all individuals indifferent of age, race, disabilities, religion, gender, etc. When organisations create their own policies based on the Equal Employment Opportunity Act 1984 to maintain the workplace free of harassment and discrimination, it supports the organisation to make sure that the laws have been followed in the workplace.
Fair Work Act 2009
Review the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Fair Work Regulations 2009. In your own words, explain the key issues addressed in this legislation relating to:
All employer and employeerelations in this country are conducted by the Fair Work Regulations 2009 and the Fair Work Act 2009. These acts are developed to provide a safety net for all employees in Australia.
- Awards
Nowadays 122 modern awards have been developed by the Fair Work Commission in this country. These numbers of awards include the minimum wages and certain conditions related to each industry, according to the Fair Work Act 2009. Modern awards should be aligned with the National Employment Standard following the minimum conditions about employability.
This award can be applied in the whole country or if there are differences about rules in another state, it should be considered. Awards developed for employees managed by the national system are considered modern awards. The Fair Work Act determines what modern awards should contain, such as normal/acceptable work hours, maximum work hours and annual leave as examples of basic demands (Fair Work Act, 2009).
In case an Award’s part or business agreement violates the National Employment Standards in any context, after that the related award or business agreement will have no legal validation (Fair Work Act, 2009).
- Collective agreements and good faith bargaining
When an employee or a group reach an agreement about terms and conditions, this action is called collective agreement. Bargaining is the procedure used to achieve the goals established on that agreement improving terms and conditions related to any kind of employment.
Complying with what the legislation says, every agreement should contain the established conditions in the Fair Work Act and include the 10 National Minimum Standards and have better outcomes comparing to a basic award (Fair Work Act, 2009).
Employees should also have a union representative acting on their behalf during the whole bargaining procedure. Considering the bargaining duration, all employees and employers and their representatives need to behave in good faith.
- All people involved on this kind of scenario must:
- Attend meeting at reasonable breaks
- Reveal important information
- Answer to any proposal from other involved representative
- Keep a fair conduct
- Give honest consideration to the other representatives suggestions
All requirements related to good faith bargaining and procedures involving bargaining representatives should be in accordance with Fair Work Act, 2009.The Fair Work Act 2009 says that when a business agreement is applied to staff, after that the modern award cannot be applied. Staff can be benefited by only one business agreement at a time, considering another agreement in the future can be chosen after the first agreement has its date expired (Fair Work Act, 2009).
- National employment standards
Besides the modern award that is part of the Fair Work Act 2009, the National Employment Standards can be applied to employees working in this country. Also the NES has the minimum work conditions described for all. It has 10 minimum rights for all employers to put into practice and provide a better workplace to their employees. Every award enterprise agreement should contain these work conditions included, such as: (Fair Work Act, 2009).
- Maximum weekly hours
- Requests for flexible working arrangements
- Parental leave and related entitlements
- Annual leave
- Personal carers leaveand compassionate leave
- Community service leave
- Long service leave
- Public holidays
- Notice of terminationand redundancy pay
- Fair Work Information Statement(Fair Work Ombudsman, n.d)
- Unions
The Fair Work Act confirms unions’ rights to entry. When an employee needs to have their union enter the work environment, the union possibly may they get in. Also, the union can enter when there is an authorization from the Fair Work Commission, depending of the case. This kind of scenario can happen when there is some breach in the work environment, such as some issues related to industry awards (Fair Work Act, 2009).
- Identify at least 4 pieces of Federal legislation related to discrimination in employment and provide a brief explanation of each, in your own words.
All these laws have been implemented to ensure that companies and organisations are maintaining their work environment free from any kind of discrimination. Nowadays we can deal with direct and indirect discrimination. When certain actions or a policy do not include a group of employees in comparison with other groups, it can be considered direct discrimination, at the same time when there is a policy or actions benefiting all employees. However, some employees are unable to comply with the rules established and are disadvantaged because of this, and then this may be considered indirect discrimination (Jones & Martian, 2014).
There are many pieces of legislation that have been created and put into practice to all employers and employees in this country, making sure that any type of discrimination are eliminated in work places, such as:
- 1) Age Discrimination Act 2004
- 2) Racial Discrimination Act 1975
- 3) Sex Discrimination Act1984
- 4) Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- This act provides protection to all employees in this country considering any kind of discrimination about their age. All employers should have enough understanding about this topic and make sure that during the selection and recruitment process there is no discrimination related to age. When a company is job advertising for a sales assistant position and in this advertisement has expressions such as: seeking good looking and young people, it is not a right to approach and attract candidates. These advertisements put a barrier for older candidates from applying, assuming that just younger candidates will be able to do a better job and through this the company goes against the Age Discrimination Act 1984 rules. Considering this kind of mistake, Citistores should write its job advertisements carefully, avoiding expressions that could be wrongly interpreted.
- This act provides protection to all employees related to negative treatment considering their nationality, race or skin colour. Thinking on this, Citistores could be considered as racist, if it keeps using just Australian employees in its organisation representation. This can be considered discrimination as Australia has a good reputation about being a multicultural country with the doors opens for diversity. To avoid violating the act, Citistores should have all employees informed about what racial discrimination means and what kind of damages it can cause in someone’s life.
- This act provides protection to all employees from discrimination related to grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy, breastfeeding, relationship status, family responsibilities, gender identity, potential pregnancy, sexual orientation or sexual harassment. Thinking in a kind of sex discrimination, an example of this violation can be assumed when a manager gives more recognition to females then males without fair evidence. Also it can happens when all females have a chance to choose their rosters while the male employees have no opportunity to choose what is suitable for them too. All managers at Citistores must be aware about this act and what kind of consequences violations could bring to the company.
- This act provides protection to all individuals from discriminations involving mental, physical, learning and intellectual disability. Citistores violates this act by avoiding to recruit a candidate with some kind of physical disability, considering that the same candidate is skilled enough for the job position compared to the other candidates. Our recruiter can give too much importance to the fact that this new employee cannot drive a car or does not have a drivers licence. Not considering the other good qualities eliminates the possibility for this person be a member of the team. Citistores’ recruiter must make sure about the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, avoiding violations and future issues for the company.
Review Chapter 2, Part 2 – 4, Division 4 of the Fair Work Act 2009 related to the approval of Enterprise Agreements.
Enterprise agreements are combined and done by people acting in groupat a business level among employees and employers. They are developed to protect certain employment conditions related to a company.
Agreement in general needs to be in accordance with the National Employment Standards andit goes above the applicable Award related to that industry. Complying with these basic standards, all enterprises agreements need to include rates of pay, methods of dispute and resolution, all employment conditions and deduction of payments.
According to the Fair Work Act, Citistores employers and employees need to follow all previous steps and after that be able to make an application to the Fair Work Commission.Employers must make sure all employees have a copy of the agreement. This document needs to have the agreement described and any extra related documents need to be included.Employers need to make sure that the terms of the suggested agreements are easy to understand for all employees involved in the agreement.
Employers need to announce to all employees 21 days before the suggested agreement comes into force. This announcement needs to contain information about the time, day, and place that the voting section will be done. The voting section will be developed by the employees’ representational entitlements. Considering only one enterprise agreement, this agreement can be made if there are more people among those employees that voted for that certain agreement to be approved.After an enterprise agreement ise accepted, this enterprise agreement needs to have a bargaining representative to apply it to the Commission for improvement. This application needs to be presented to the commission in fourteen days after the agreement is made. It can be done by post, in person or by email (Fair Work Act 2009).
References:
Commonwealth Consolidated Acts. (n.d.). Fair Work Act. (2009). Retrieved from https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/
Commonwealth Consolidated Acts. (n.d.). Sexual Discrimination Act 1984. Retrieved from https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/sda1984209/
https://blackboard.northmetrotafe.wa.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/blankPage?cmd=view&content_id=_381704_1&course_id=_4713_1
https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/atoms/files/minimum_conditions_of_employment_booklet.pdf
Creighton, B., & Forsyth, A. (Eds.). (2012). Rediscovering Collective Bargaining: Australia’s Fair Work Act in International Perspective. Routledge.
De Wit, F. R., Greer, L. L., & Jehn, K. A. (2012). The paradox of intragroup conflict: a meta-analysis.
Department of Commerce. (2016). Minimum Conditions of Employment. Retrieved from
Department of Commerce. (2016). What is Discrimination?, retrieved from https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/books/inc-guide-incorporated-associations-western-australia/what-discrimination
Department of the Premier and Cabinet. (2016). Industrial Relations Act 1979. Retrieved from https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:28896P/$FILE/Industrial%20Relations%20Act%201979%20-%20[14-e0-01].pdf?OpenElement
Employment Law Centre of WA. (2013). Industrial Relations Act. Retrieved from https://elcwa.org.au/glossary/industrial-relations-act-1979-wa/
Equal Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). Equal Opportunity Act 1984. Retrieved from https://www.eoc.wa.gov.au/about-us/equal-opportunity-act-1984
Fair Work Ombudsman. (2017). Fair Work Ombudsman. Retrieved 15 June 2017, from https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-entitlements/national-employment-standards
Federal Register of Legislation. (n.d). Age Discrimination Act 2004. Retrieved from https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2010C00155
Federal Register of Legislation. (n.d.). Disability Discrimination Act (1992). Retrieved from https://www.legislation.gov.au/details/c2013c00022
Federal Register of Legislation. (n.d.). Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Retrieved from https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2014C00014
Harper, C. (2015). Organizations: Structures, processes and outcomes. Routledge.
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Jones, R &Martain, S (2013). Managing Human Resource Systems. HRVET. Western Australia
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LEGAL PROFESSION ACT 2008 – SECT 12. (2017). Austlii.edu.au. Retrieved 15 June 2017, from https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/wa/consol_act/lpa2008179/s12.html
Mirvis, P. (2012). Employee engagement and CSR. California Management Review, 54(4), 93-117.
Morley, I., & Stephenson, G. (2015). The social psychology of bargaining(Vol. 17). Psychology Press.
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Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission. (2016). Welcome to the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Retrieved from https://www.wairc.wa.gov.au/index.php/en/
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