THIS CRUCIAL PIECE OF LEGISLATION IS ALL ABOUT THE EMPLOYER EMPLOYEE RELATION

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THIS CRUCIAL PIECE OF LEGISLATION IS ALL ABOUT THE EMPLOYER EMPLOYEE RELATION

Fair Work Act 2009

Fair work act 2009 was introduced by the Rudd government after they come into the power in 2007. The new law replaces the previous work choices legislation of the Howard’s government and started its operations on 1 July2009 with the only aim to reform the industrial relations in Australia. The act brings out new workplace relation laws that are designed to balance the needs of employers, employees and the unions.

The Act will applies to national system employers as well as their employees which includes Constitutional corporations, the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth authority, employers in the TerritoriesAnd almost all employees in Victoria which also includes non-trading corporations

This crucial piece of legislation is all about the employer employee relation as well as their responsibilities at work but have to face a lot of criticism also. Some of the biggest changes that differentiate it from the work choices legislation include:

1. Unfair dismissal, which gives the employees an opportunity to respond before they are dismissed and the process of dismissalshould be fairand reasonable with valid reasons.The new legislationhas also ruled out the exemption of 100 or less employees. Hence no business is exempted from provision of such rule.

2. The other main changesinclude NES national employment standard that provides the employees with certain minimum conditions or entitlements and hence makes up a safety net around employees against any employee disadvantage.

3. The act also provides that employer should try to consult or find some alternate way before termination of employee otherwise risk an adverse action. Moreover the powers andrights of unions arealso increased.

4. It further provides protection against low wages along with the right to be represented in the workplace.

Fair work act 2009, no doubt has provided a massive leg up to the trade unions struggling for a long time membership and support from this new generation employees. Every effort is made to ensure that the unions get a place at the bargaining tables for a new enterprise agreement.

Unions who have the support of the 50 % of workforce can bargain the enterprise agreement for the entire workforce. They are necessarily involved in the bargaining for employment ofnew projectswithout ensuring about the employees’ desire or opinion to join the union.

Even a single employee by his side, will make the union eligible by a proposed new agreement to take part as a critical bargaining party and employees who do not wish to be represented by them have to give it in written to the union.

Employers also face difficulty in dealing directly with the employees in case any union is involved due to entry rights provided to the union again strengthening the union leverage. Moreover the act also empowered the unions with the power to enter the workplace and drive membership campaigns.

But after so many years of the successful implementation of this law and despite the privilege given to the unions under the law, their membership has shown a continuous fall to just 11.1 percent of the private sector employees.

And now the main question arises here is that whether this workplace relation system is providing the right protection to employers and employees and what actually we are achieving in terms of economic growth, standard of living and especially from the point of view of country as a whole.