Introduction to Fair Work Commission and its role
Fair work commission was established back in July 2009, and it became fully operational in 2010. The commission which was established under the Fair Work Act of 2009 was created to oversee relations in the workplace system. The Fair Work Act was necessitated by the need to create a national system for governing the relations of Australia industrial sector.
In Australia, Commission of Fair Work plays the role of a workplace relations tribunal. The commission, therefore, acts as an arbitrator in cases between employers and employees (Gazioglu and Tansel, 2012). This is because it is considered an independent body with the sole responsibility of providing help to both employers and employees. Since this commission is independent of interference by unions, government and businesses its powers and responsibilities supersede those of the Australian Industrial Relation Commission.
Some of its responsibilities include; making minimum wage orders, approving agreements, helping employers and employees to resolve cases at the workplace, dealing with issues arising under right of entry provisions, dealing with issues arising from unlawful termination provisions and general protections, setting of industrial awards among others (Bray, Waring, Cooper, and Macneil, 2014). Another role of the commission is to enhance harmonious and productive workplaces in Australia. It also seeks to enforce compliance with workplace relation laws. The Commission, therefore, has the responsibility to provide advice and information on international workplace laws to employers, employees, and organizations
The resignation of Graeme Watson as the Vice President of Fair Work Commission came in the wake of allegations that the commission was no longer living up to its commitment and that is to be an independent body and free from influence. Watson did not only resign but launched scathing attacks against the commission concerning its ability to remain independent and non-partisan. According to him the tribunal in the recent past has been politically compromised and has become an organization that is biased and only serves the interest of a particular group. When tendering his resignation, Watson noted that the reason behind his resignation was due to the loss of objectivity of the commission and how partisan it had become when enforcing workplace relations system.
Jennifer Westacott’s article “Enterprise bargaining on the Brink” comes in the wake of Watson’s resignation. She highlights the current state of enterprise bargaining and how digitization and digitization o the workplace has reshaped work place relations system. As a result, Westacott proposes a change in the enterprise arrangements that will adapt to the changing needs of Australian companies. One of the proposals she puts across includes making the Better off overall test transparent and predictable for employees and employers. This way the commission will be able to limit the scope of what can be added in the agreement (Westacott, 2017)
Responsibilities of the Fair Work Commission
Westacott also calls for the modernisation of the enterprise bargaining system. This means that the commission will be able to present a system that has clearly defined a list of issues thus operating with agreements that have limited content. This means that the employers and employees will now only channel their efforts on bargaining towards wages and other cases that are particularly affecting their individual circumstances. Partnering of the commission with other law making bodies like Parliament may go a long way in creating a system that will improve the competitiveness of the commission and at the same time being able to adapt to the emerging trends in the workplace relation system
An agreement according to the Fair work commission refers to set out conditions and terms of employment that are made between a worker and his/her employer. When making an agreement the employees, the employers together with all those who represent them are all engaged in the bargaining activities with the terms of agreement of the enterprise in question (Bray and Waring, 2014). This means that the employer or organization must inform its workers of their fundamental right for a legal officer or a bargaining officer to represent them during n agreements closure.
In reference to the system of Australian workplace relations, agreements are placed in two major categories. For example, agreements related to enterprises and the agreements that are related to transitional instruments (Drydakis, 2012). Agreements that are related to enterprise came into play to summarize the various types of workplace agreements that were in existence before July 2009. This refers to the agreement that is made between employers’ national system and their employee as stipulated in the agreement. This type of agreement is usually nearrives at through a negotiation process between the involved individuals in good faith bargaining (Forsyth, Gahan, and Howe, 2011). With the inception of the Fair work Act backs in 2009 among the enterprise related agreements include:
- Agreement of single enterprise – This is one which is arrived at between only one employer and the employees recruited at the time this agreement was made. Single interest employers, on the other hand, are joint venture or a related company employers. The Fair work commission can also authorize specific employers to fall in the category of single interest employers.
- Multi-enterprise agreement – A multi-enterprise agreement on the other side involves an agreement that is arrived at by more than one employers who are not involved in one interest employers and employees who are under employment during the time when the inception of the agreement took place (Lewis and Thornhill, 2003).
- Greenfields Agreement – This is one that is usually that is arrived at in relationship present employers enterprise prior to any recruitment of an employee. A green field enterprise can either operate as a single or multi-enterprise agreement.
- When making an enterprise agreement there specific terms that need to be included in it to make this agreement binding. This contents include; the conditions of employee and employer relationship and the relationship among employee themselves as stated in the agreement.
For an enterprise agreement to be complete, it must contain the following components
- A procedure for settling dispute,
- A tentative date for expiry of the agreement which should be no longer than 4 years,
- A flexible term that will create room for flexible arrangements by individuals to meet the needs of workers.
Approval of Agreements by Fair Work Commission.Approval of agreements usually comes once the bargaining has been done and a draft enterprise agreement is ready.Steps that are involved in the making and approving of agreements
While the employees will be going through the draft enterprise, the employer must ensure a variety of issues are met before the voting can be done. These issues include;
- They should ensure that explanations in the agreement are clear and provided in an appropriate manner,
- They should also ensure that they have taken all necessary measures to explain the enterprise terms and conditions in a clear way to the employee.
- They should also ensure that the workers are a given a copy of the agreement during the one week grace period prior to ballot for the agreement. This should include any other addition material that has been added to the enterprise agreement.
By voting for the agreement, the employees would have endorsed the agreement, and this can only be done after twenty-one days from the date the workers were notified. The vote will only be considered successful when a majority of the workers who voted had supported the agreement (McPhail, Jerrard, and Southcombe, 2015). This is manly applicable to enterprise agreement as there is no voting on Greenfields agreement. Applying for approval of the endorsed agreement by Fair Work Commission is usually done within 14 days from the date which the agreement was made.
Resignation of Vice-President Graeme Watson and its impact
The approval process for an enterprise agreement is considered as one of the fairest processes for both the employer and employees (Townsend, Wilkinson, and Burgess, 2013). It ensures that the rights of the worker are not infringed by the employee and the vice versa is true (Nikoloski, K., et al., 2014). This makes the final deal favorable for both parties as their interest have been well catered for in the agreement.
The fact that the approval process involves a voting process where employers are given an opportunity to give a majority support to the agreement makes the approval process reliable and transparent for the workers and thus preventing cases whereby employers can have their way with the deal.
The employer is required to present any other relevant material incorporated in the agreement within the seven day access period. This means that no clauses or documents about the agreement can be presented later (Westacott, 2017). This means that the employees will always have what they bargained for and thus making this process a water tight process.
The agreement is expected not to include any unlawful content. This means that any discriminatory or objectionable terms will see the agreement being declined by the Fair work commission. These further safeguards the interest of the involved parties as none of them can maliciously benefit from the agreement.
One of the main weaknesses of this process is that despite the approval process coming out as fair process especially to both parties to some extent it seems to be inclining more to the benefit of the employees than the employer (Wright and Lansbury, 2016). Most of the clauses seem to benefit workers more echoing the role played by collective bargaining agreement in such cases.
Angwin, M., 2017. EBAs are now just a blockage to productivity. Australian Financial Review, 14 February. p. 39.
Bray, M, Waring, P, Cooper, R and Macneil, J. 2014. Employment relations: Theory and practice. (3rd Ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Bray, M. and Waring, P., 2014. Chapter 5: Employment relations, in R Kramar, T Bartram, H De Cieri, RA Noe, JR Hollenbeck, B Gerhart and PM Wright. Human resource management in Australia: strategy, people, performance. (5th Ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Drydakis, N., 2012. Health Impaired Employees Job satisfaction New Evidence from Athens, Greece. Applied Economics Letters, 19(8), pp.789-793.
Forsyth, A, Gahan, P and Howe, J., 2011. Weighty measures: bargaining in balance. Australian Financial Review, 15 November, p. 63.
Gazioglu, S. and Tansel. A, 2012. Managerial Attitudes towards Employees, Firm Size and Job Satisfaction in Britain. ERC Working Paper, Ankara: Department of Economics Middle East Technical University.
Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A., 2003. Employee relations: understanding the employment. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
McPhail, R, Jerrard, M and Southcombe, A., 2015. Employment relations: an integrated approach, Cengage Learning.
Nikoloski, K., et al., 2014. From Industrial Relations to Employment Relations with Focus on Employee Relations. International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research (IJSBAR), 18(2), pp. 117-124.
Townsend, K, Wilkinson, A and Burgess, J., 2013. Is enterprise bargaining still a better way of working? Journal of Industrial Relations, 55(1), pp. 100-117.
Westacott, J. 2017. Enterprise bargaining on the brink. Australian Financial Review, 2 February, p. 34.
Wright, C. F and Lansbury, R. D., 2016. Employment relations in Australia, in GJ Bamber, RD Lansbury, N Wailes and CF Wright (Eds). International and comparative employment relations: National regulation, global changes (6th Ed.). Crow’s Nest.
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