What is Enterprise Bargaining
Enterprise bargaining is a form of collective bargaining in Australia, where wages are negotiated and working conditions established for an organisation. From this, enterprise agreements are drafted, which are legally binding documents that set out the specific conditions and terms of employment that are agreed to.
With the Secure Jobs Better Pay Act, Closing Loopholes Act and Closing Loopholes No. 2 Act, alot has changed in how employers and employees bargain and make ageements. Key developments include:
- Introduction of Multi-Enterprise Bargaining Streams: Effective from 6 June 2023, the Fair Work Act 2009 was amended to introduce new multi-enterprise bargaining streams:
- Single Interest Employer Agreement, where employers with shared interests can collectively bargain, streamlining the process and reducing administrative burdens.
- Supported Bargaining Agreements, that are designed to assist employees in sectors with limited bargaining power, facilitating a fairer wage negotiation.
2. Changes to the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) if your enterprise agreement is made on or after 6 June 2023.
- To provide greater clarity and flexibility the Fair Work Commission (FWC) now assesses agreements holistically, considering overall benefits rather than a line-by-line comparison.
- The FWC will evaluate the practical application of agreements, ensuring they reflect real-world employment scenarios.
3. Enhanced role of the FWC
- The involvement of the FWC in enterprise bargaining has been strengthened.
Australian Business Lawyers & Advisors provide multiple solutions in working with your organisation to ensure the bargaining process achieves the desired outcomes, in line with long-term growth and strategy.
What to consider when planning
- Don’t rush into bargaining if you have not started. You need a material business reason to start.
- Don’t assume bargaining will improve your workplace culture. There are much better ways to do this.
- Consider your broader labour sourcing strategy before you start bargaining, maybe the flexibility you need can come from the mix of sourcing.
- If you are bargaining try not to industrialise things you need to keep fluid, such as safety and policies.
- Learn how to map your workplace culture and union relations to understand what bargaining environment you are likely to be in and then plan how to evolve this to not undermine your workplace culture.
- Understand how you teach your employees to behave in bargaining by your actions. If strike action leads to better outcomes you are teaching your employees to go on strike!
- Try and achieve the longest agreement length you can get to give yourself time to work on your direct engagement strategies outside of bargaining.
- Understand that your objective must be to move bargaining to a relational basis where you and your employees place your on-going relationship ahead of any transactional bargaining gain.
Call for a confidential discussion about your industrial relations strategy or enterprise bargaining strategy on 1300 565 846 or complete the Contact Us form on this page.
