Will demarcation disputes and comparative wage justice claims return to the union agenda? Also, a tick for enterprise agreement 'opt out' provisions.

Many years ago employers used to be troubled by some serious demarcation disputes between unions over membership at a workplace. Unions would battle it out on the shop floor while an employer would patiently seek some form of resolution to the fighting over the hearts and minds of its employees through the (then) Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The outcomes were extremely important because productive relationships between management, its employees and a particular union could be lost through the forceful intrusion of a militant union into the workplace.

The 6 Big Issues (as we see them) for 2012 ⁽ⁱ⁾.

We want to thank you for your continued support during 2011. It has been a pleasure working with you on the many and varied workplace issues over the last 12 months.

For some of you it was a challenging year dealing with the big changes felt at the workplace level brought about by the Fair Work Act, NES, enterprise bargaining and modern award application. There also continue to be big challenges for many workplaces as a consequence of the world’s increasingly serious financial problems, and, their impact on our Asian neighbours and Australia’s so-called two speed economy.

The New Workplace Montage - Unfair Dismissal, Redundancy, Adverse Action and Bargaining Representatives ⁽ⁱ⁾

The end of 2011 bears witness to the fact that all private sector Australian workplaces are now regulated by the Fair Work Act (the “Act”), with a hefty proportion of employees in those workplaces covered by modern awards. The Act has been in place since July 2009, with some extra items kicking in on January 1, 2010 which happened to coincide with the (then) NSW government’s referral of remaining employers, not then covered by the Act, into the federal system (entities such as partnerships, charities, many aged care providers, sole traders and the like). Councils and public sector employers have remained within the State IR system.

In our experience the Fair Work Act 2009 (the "Act") provides a much more exciting canvass to work off than the one-time fairness test under the (then) Work Choices legislation. Now we have legislation that opens up the range of workplace conditions that can be discussed during negotiations for a collective agreement. The Act also resurrects a fairly braod discretion for Fair Work Australia (FWA) to improve innovative agreements under the better off overall test on public interest grounds. For a PDF copy of this Workplace Update bulletin, click here.

In our September 2009 Workplace Update we informed you about the potential issues that might arise under the (then) brand new General Protection provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the “Act”). We weren’t wrong about their potential scope and, in our opinion, there are many more complex issues in this area heading for human resources. For a PDF copy of this Workplace Update bulletin, click here.