BSBWRK520 - Online Study Guide

AIC_BSBWRK520_OS V2.
0 1
 IBSA Student workbooks Section 1,2
AIC_BSBWRK520_OS V2.0 2
 This unit requires an understanding of the
Australian workplace relations system, including
courts, tribunals, employer bodies and unions.
 To be able to work effectively in the area of
employee relations in any Australian organisation,
it is first essential to understand the law and best
practice that provides the foundation for employee
relations in Australia.
 The terms 'employee/employment relations',
'industrial relations' and 'workplace relations' are
often used interchangeably to refer to the
relationship between the management of an
organisation and its workforce.
 However, there is an increasing preference for the
terms 'workplace relations' and 'employee
relations' as they allow for a broader focus that
includes non-industrial - that is, relations that are
not dominated by involvement with trade unions –
personnel management.
 Australia's current national workplace relations
system, also known as the 'Fair Work system',
commenced on the 1st of July 2009 under the
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cwlth).
 The Fair Work system covers most organisations
and employees across Australia, but there are a
few exceptions. Some employers and corporations
are governed under state-based employee
relations systems.
 The first step in managing employee relations in
any organisation is to identify which workplace
relations system - the national Fair Work system,
or a relevant state-based system – applies in your
workplace.
 Organisations operating under the national system
◦ constitutional corporations - financial or trading
corporations formed in Australia, or foreign corporations
that do business in Australia
◦ private and government sector organisations in Victoria,
the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory
◦ private sector organisations in New South Wales,
Queensland and South Australia
◦ private sector organisations or local government sector
in Tasmania
 Organisations operating under a state system
◦ state public sector organisations in Western Australia
◦ non-constitutional corporations in private industry or local
government in Western Australia
◦ all government organisations in New South Wales,
Queensland and South Australia
◦ state government organisations in Tasmania
 The Fair Work system aims to ensure a balanced
framework for cooperative and productive
workplace relations; one that promotes national
economic prosperity and social inclusion for all
Australians.
 The Fair Work system achieves these aims by
setting out clear rights and responsibilities for
employees and employers to prevent workplace
issues, but also provides guidelines and support
for resolving workplace disputes where they occur.
 The Fair Work system is made up of five key
organisations:
◦ The Fair Work Commission - Australia's national
workplace relations tribunal, responsible for managing a
range of workplace relations functions and regulation.
◦ The Fair Work Ombudsman - A statutory office created
by the Fair Work Act 2009, responsible for promoting
harmonious, productive and cooperative workplace
relations and ensuring organisations and their employees
comply with Australian workplace laws.
◦ Fair Work Building and Construction - Responsible for a
range of workplace relations matters in the building and
construction industry.
◦ The Federal Court of Australia - The Federal Court has
jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters arising in
the Fair Work jurisdiction, under section 562 of the Fair
Work Act 2009.
◦ The Fair Work Division of the Federal Circuit Court of
Australia - The Fair Work Division provides alternative
options to employment litigation in the Federal Court of
Australia (Federal Court). It aims to operate informally,
and uses streamlined procedures to deal with matters
promptly and efficiently
 Registered organisations include:
◦ unions
◦ employer associations.
 These organisations represent their members or
member organisations in employee/ employer
negotiations around employment rights and pay. It
is the role of the Fair Work Commission to ensure
accountability of these organisations in relation to
the rules under which they must operate, conduct
of officers, elections and other matters.
 Trade unions
◦ One of the most influential groups in the workplace
relations system are the trade union organisations.
Unions are made up of employees, usually from the
same industry or similar industries. The main role of a
union is to represent their members in employee relations
matters including employment rights and collective
bargaining with employers about members' pay and
conditions. Employees who join unions have greater
bargaining powers as a collective, rather than as
individuals, when facing their employers and the
government. All trade unions must be registered with the
Fair Work Commission.
◦ Unions exist to:
 negotiate awards with employers and employer
organisations, and represent employees at tribunals to have
awards ratified or modified
 represent members in industrial disputes
 support union delegates
 act on behalf of members in the workplace
 provide advice on workplace issues
 appear in national wage case hearings on behalf of their
members.
◦ Employers must let a union official enter their workplace
if they have a valid permit, have given the required
notice, and is either:
 investigating an alleged breach on behalf of a union
member
 meeting with members who have requested a meeting.
◦ All employees have the freedom and right to join or not
join a union. They must not be pressured by an
employer, union official, or any other person to make a
decision about joining, not joining or leaving a union and
equally must not be subject to adverse treatment for
joining a union.
◦ Examples of unions include:
 Australian Services Union (ASU)
 Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU)
 Australian Workers Union (AWU)
 Financial Sector Union (FSU)
 Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU)
 Shop, Distributive and Allied Employee's Association (SDA)
 Transport Workers Union (TWU)
 Employer associations
◦ Trade unions represent the needs and interests of
employees. Employer associations aim to further the
interests of member organisations by conducting
negotiations with trade unions, providing advice, making
representations to other bodies. Employer bodies are
commonly made of organisations from the same sector
or industry, working together for the interests of all
members.
◦ As with trade unions, employer groups must apply to the
Fair Work Commission for registration in order to carry
out their functions.
◦ Examples of employer associations include:
 Victorian Employers' Chamber of
 Commerce and Industry
 Confederation of A.C.T. Industry
 Civil Contractors Federation
 The Master Plumbers' and Mechanical Services Association
of Australia
 Traffic Management Association of Australia
 Australian Business Industrial (NSW)
 Building Services Contractors Association of Australia
 Master Painters Australia - NSW Association Inc.
 The National Electrical Contractors Association
 You are required to complete Week 1 practice
question
 Under the Fair Work system, employers and
employees have the same workplace rights and
obligations, regardless of the state that they work
in.
 The Fair Work system includes:
◦ national employment standards (NES)
◦ modern awards
◦ minimum wage
◦ contracts of employment and enterprise agreements
◦ protection from unfair dismissal
 National employment standards
◦ All employees operating within the national workplace
system are covered by the NES. The NES are ten
minimum standards of employment that are set out in
the Fair Work Act. These standards detail a set of
minimum entitlements that must be provided to all
employees regardless of whether they are employed
under a modern award, agreement or contract.
◦ Awards, agreements and contracts of employment
supplement the NES by providing additional terms and
conditions that make up every employee's minimum
entitlements.
◦ Employers and employees cannot agree to employment
entitlements that provide less benefits than the NES as
the NES are guaranteed minimum standards. An
organisation's employee relations strategies and policies
must ensure compliance with these standards.
◦ The 10 NES entitlements are:
 The maximum weekly working hours - 38 hours, plus
reasonable additional hours.
 Request for flexible working arrangements - Allows parents
or carers of a child of school age or younger to request a
change in working arrangements to assist with the child's
care.
 Parental leave and related entitlements - Up to 12 months
unpaid leave for every employee, plus a right to request an
additional 12 months unpaid leave, plus a range of maternity,
paternity and adoption related leave.
 Annual leave - Four weeks paid leave per year, plus an
additional week for certain shift workers.
 Personal leave, carer’s leave and compassionate leave - Ten
days paid personal/carer's leave, two days unpaid carer's
leave as required, and two days compassionate leave
(unpaid for casuals) as required.
 Community service leave - Unpaid leave for voluntary
emergency activities of any reasonable duration, and leave
for jury service - to be paid at a 'make-up' rate for up to ten
days of jury service.
 Long service leave (LSL) - A transitional entitlement for
certain employees who had certain LSL entitlements before
1 January 2010, pending the development of a uniform
national long service leave standard.
 Public holidays - A paid day off on a public holiday, except
where there is a reasonable request to work.
 Notice of termination and redundancy pay - Up to four
weeks' notice of termination (five weeks if the employee is
over 45 and has at least two years of continuous service)
and up to 16 weeks of redundancy pay, both based on
length of service.
 Provision of a Fair Work Information Statement - Employers
must provide this statement to all new employees. It contains
information about the NES, rights of employees and the role
of the Fair Work Commission and Fair Work Ombudsman.
 The website of the Fair Work Ombudsman
provides more detail on each of these
entitlements on the 'National Employment
Standards' page, available at:
<https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-
entitlements/national-employment-standards>.
 Awards are legally enforceable written
documents that set out minimum conditions of
employment for employees doing a particular
job.
 In the Fair Work system, there are two main
types of awards:
◦ modern awards
◦ award-based transitional instruments (including
former federal and state awards created before March
2006).
 Awards may cover the entire workforce or may
cover only some members of the organisation;
they may be industry-based (e.g. retail industry,
hospitality industry, etc.) or may be
occupationally-based (e.g, air pilots, nurses, etc.).
 Awards include conditions, such as:
◦ wage rates
◦ penalty rates and allowance
◦ hours of work
◦ leave provisions
◦ consultation and dispute resolution requirements.
 Other conditions, such as long-service leave
and workers' compensation are usually covered
by state legislation.
 Awards are generally used as a minimum
starting point for enterprise agreements.
 The Fair Work system covers most organisations
operating in Australia, but not all
 To see what's happening in your state, visit 'The Fair
Work system' page on the website of the Fair Work
Ombudsman at: <http://www.fairwork.gov.au/About-
us/the-fair-work-system>. Under the heading 'Who is
covered by the Fair Work system, there is a summary
of coverage for each state.
 The national minimum wage is the minimum wage
that can be paid to employees who are not covered by
awards or agreements. It includes a minimum wage,
casual loading and special minimum pay rate for
employees with a disability, trainees, apprentices and
juniors. The minimum entitlements are also reflected
in the 10 The National Employment Standards (NES).
 Each year the Fair Work Commission conducts a
formal review of modern award minimum wages and
sets a new national minimum wage order for
Australian employees not covered by enterprise
agreements or modern awards.
 The revised national minimum wage order made in a
review takes effect on the 1st of July in the next
financial year, and continues in operation until the next
national minimum wage order comes into operation.
 A contract of employment (also known as a
contract of service) falls under the heading of
common law. It is an agreement between an
employer and an employee that is legally
enforceable. A contract of employment may be
written, oral, or in some cases, implied.
 A contract of employment sets out the conditions
of employment that have been agreed to.
However, the conditions must not fall below the
minimum standard or that contained in the award
applicable to that particular job.
 For a contract of employment to be legally valid it
must contain six essential elements, briefly, these
are:
◦ the intention of the parties to create a legal relationship
◦ an offer by one party and the acceptance of that offer by
the other party
◦ form of valuable consideration: a promise of economic
value (usually wages)
◦ capacity to contract, i.e. be legally capable of making a
contract
◦ there must be genuine consent to the contract
◦ the purpose of the contract must be legal
 Enterprise agreements provide conditions of
employment for a specific group of employees at one or
more workplaces. While awards cover a whole industry
or occupation, enterprise agreements allow
organisations to tailor the agreement to meet their
needs. Enterprise agreements cover such matters as:
◦ pay
◦ employment conditions, e.g, annual and personal leave, rostered
hours, meal breaks, overtime, etc.
◦ employee consultation
◦ deductions from wages for any purpose authorised by an
employee
◦ dispute resolution procedures.
 Enterprise agreements are governed by federal
workplace relations law and therefore must meet all
minimum entitlements and conditions stated in the
relevant modern award, 10 NES and the Fair Work Act
and must not contain any unlawful content.
 Once an enterprise agreement is made, the employer
representative must apply to the Fair Work Commission
for approval of the agreement. Before approving an
enterprise agreement, the Fair Work Commission will
assess the agreement to ensure it passes the 'better off
overall' test. This requires that each of the employees to
be covered by the agreement are better off overall than
under the relevant modern award. The better off overall
test is outlined in the Fair Work Act and applies to
agreements made on or after 1January 2010.
 The Fair Work Commission provides the following
definitions for the different types of enterprise
agreements:
◦ Single-enterprise agreements - agreements that involve one or
more employers (such as joint ventures) co-operating in what is
essentially a single enterprise (such employers are known as
'single interest employers').
◦ Multi-enterprise agreements - agreements involving two or more
employers that are not all single interest employers.
◦ Greenfields agreements - agreements involving a genuinely new
enterprise that one or more employers are establishing or
propose to establish and who have not yet formally recruited the
staff necessary for the normal conduct of the enterprise. Such
agreements are temporary and may be either a single-enterprise
agreement or a multi-enterprise agreement.
 The Fair Work Act outlines that termination from
employment may be considered unfair if an
employee's employment is terminated without just
cause and/or without appropriate notice - i.e. the
punishment does not fit the crime. The dismissal
may be unfair if it is deemed as harsh, unjust or
unreasonable, or for small businesses, the
dismissal was not consistent with the Small
Business Fair Dismissal Code.
 There are special unfair dismissal arrangements
that apply to small businesses that operate within
the national workplace relations system. A small
business is defined as any business having less
than 15 employees based on employees who are
employed on a regular and systematic basis.
 The code includes:
◦ a minimum employment period of 12 months instead of 6
months (employees can't make an unfair dismissal claim
during this 12 month period)
◦ a simple Fair Dismissal Code to help employers ensure
dismissals are not unfair
◦ support and advice from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
question
 Examples of ER policies:
◦ employee grievance policy
◦ employee consultation policy
◦ equal employment opportunity policy
◦ harassment policy
◦ employee separation policy.
 Strategic plans are the road map for an
organisation and its employees.
 They incorporate the values, vision and mission of
the organisation and detail the strategies and
actions required to achieve the organisation’s
goals.
 They typically look ahead three to five years.
 Operational plans are the ‘how to’ for achieving
strategic business goals. They detail the specific
actions of how an organisation’s strategic goals
will be achieved.
 Organisations typically have long-term industrial
relations objectives with regards to:
◦ effective management of grievances, conflict situations and
dispute resolutions procedures
◦ employee commitment
◦ employee satisfaction
◦ job design
◦ negotiation outcomes
◦ organisational culture
◦ relations with unions or other peak bodies
◦ restructuring
◦ salary, remuneration, benefits or bonuses
◦ workforce planning
◦ workplace reform.
question
 Have the goals of the current strategy been
achieved?
 How well do those goals map to the organisations
goals?
 What are the goals of the current strategy?
 Have the strategic and operational plan goals of
the organisation been met?
 How well does the existing strategy reflect the
organisations values?
 Do the existing policies support the achievement
of the strategy goals?
 Why did the dispute occur?
 How was it resolved?
 How long did it take to resolve?
 Were employees consulted?
 How were employees consulted?
 What were the business/financial impacts as a
result of the dispute?
 What were the employee impacts as a result of
the dispute?
 strengths
 weaknesses
 opportunities
 threats.
question
 Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is the implicit or
explicit assessment of the benefits and costs (i.e.,
pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages)
associated with a particular choice.
 Benefits and costs may be monetary or non-
monetary.
 Features of the national system include:
◦ National Employment Standards (NES)
◦ modern awards
◦ minimum wage
◦ enterprise agreements
◦ protection from unfair dismissal
question

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