Fair Work Act 2009: Business Analysis
Introduction:
It is the intention of this essay to critically discuss and analyse the various relevant theories related to industrial relations and changes that had taken place since 2005 in industrial relations that have impacted employment relations at the workplace and how they improved the workplace conditions. This will be carried out by exhibiting the brief history industrial relations and changes in Australia. It will provide a brief overview of Fair Work Act 2009 in comparison to the Work Choices 2005 and rules and regulations relating to the employees work rights and benefits. Secondly, the essay will explain how Fair work has been able to improve the employment relations at the workplace. It will also outline the relevant HR theories …show more content…
related to it . Lastly, after discussing various relevant theories and examples, the conclusion will be drawn at the end.
Industrial relation is the relation in the middle of workers and their employer under legal frame-work over specific conditions. Industrial Relations is one of the most critical and important part of HRM. It is the commitment made between the workers and their employer to comply with the parties involved over work rights and riches under the contract (International Labour Conference 2004). Balnave et al. (2009) argues that industrial relationship assists in shaping the working environment as well as plays an essential part at present building a decent relationship in the middle of worker and business. The industrial relations fit in with three sets of performers. The three sets of performers in modern relations are employees and their union, employer and administration and the state. They cooperate and work within set of rules to create their better relationship (Deery & Plowman 1991). The commitment of the employer is to hire employees, decide their job and pay for the work performed by them (Gardner & Palmer 1997). The situation of industrial relations is seen distinctively by different individuals. For some, IR is identified with class conflicts, others see it regarding shared co-operation and still some understand it as competing interests of different groups. There are mainly three popular theories on IR namely unitarism, pluralism and radicalism. The unitarism theory view the organization as indicating towards a solitary or unified authority and structure of loyalty. under the unitary outlook, emphasis is set on common values, interests and goals. The fundamental presumption of this perspective is that the business organisation prevails in perfect harmony and any conflict is needless (Rose, 2008). The pluralistic thory completely differes from the unitarism. Pluralistic sees the organization as coalition of different sectional groups with diverse values, interests and targets. Accordingly, representatives have diverse qualities and desires from those of management, and they are always in conflict with management. The radical approach is marked by the capitalist theory which demonstrates a reasonable distinction in interests capital and work. This point of view sees imbalances of economic wealth and power. Existence of this approach demonstrates that conflict is inevitable in any organization because it is in contrast to human rights. Kelly (2003) proposes that, while mechanical relations has an institutional centre with most attention toward trade unions, management associations, and the state agencies like arbitration systems, HR management has a managerialistic centre, which is concerned with the control and management of workplace relations. Employees sometimes do not get the proper payment for their work performed or employers do not provide them with fair work conditions. The Humanitarian, Cooperative and Marxist concepts of the early 1900s underlined the possible conflict of interests of a worker and boss in advanced industry, circumstances that established the frameworks for the development of trade unions and employement relations. So, there are always some conflict between the workers/trade unions and employers or management regarding wages, working hours, conditions, holidays and annual leaves allowed to employees. To deal with these conflicts and maintain cordial industrial relations, some changes are always needed in the workplace. Changes in work environment relations have happened all through history.
The most notable change happened when Work choices was presented in 2005 by Liberal government. The impact of the change was significant to the point that eventually brought on the Liberal government to lose the command in 2007. Work Choices or Workplace Relations Amendment Act 2005 was an amendment of Workplace Relations Act 1996 that included many controversial changes to the previous Act of 1996. The major changes in the Work Choices were, diminishing number of allowable matters to be covered under awards, exclusion of organizations with less than 101 workers from unfair dismissal laws, escalating restrictions on allowable industrial actions and setting up Australian Fair Pay Commission to decide minimum wages and working hours. All other terms and situations of employment were negotiable among employers and workers (Stewart, 2008). Work Choices 2005 made it much harder for unions to build and keep up collective agreement and more troublesome for them to utilize customary bargaining tools without exposing employees to fines and lawful actions. Because to its unpopularity, Work choices was voted out in 2009 and was substituted by Fair Work Act. There was a remarkable change from 2010 in work environment relations. In the new working environment connection framework managers and workers have the same working environment rights and commitments, irrespective to the state they work in. Modern awards together with the National Employment Standards (NES) and the national least wage order, make up new safety net for employees (Fair Work Australia, 2012). The reason for the recompense modernisation was to avoid employee’s exploitation, abuse and biased dismissals. The Fair Work Act 2009 was the result of extensive meeting and discussion with business organizations, the unions and the more widespread community and drafting, providing an prospect for period of stability in Australia 's industrial development (Floyd, 2009). Fair Work Australia has the authority to vary awards, make minimum wage guidelines, approve agreements, determine unfair dismissal claims and make instructions on such matters as good faith bargaining and industrial action, to aid employees and employers resolve disputes at the workplace. There are 10 minimum entitlements in National Employment Standards(NES) under Fair Work Act 2009 which are: a maximum standard working week of 38 hours for full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours, a right to request flexible working provisions, parental leave of 12 months, with a right to request an additional 12 months, four weeks paid annual leave each year, ten days paid personal/carer’s leave each year, two days paid compassionate leave for each permitted occasion, and two days unpaid carer’s leave for each permitted occasion, community service leave for jury service or activities dealing with certain emergencies, long service leave, public holidays and the right to be paid for ordinary hours on those days, notice of termination and redundancy pay, the right for new employees to get the Fair Work Information Statement (Fair Work Ombudsman, n.d.). Fair work has created a balance between the powers of employees and employers for maintaining good industrial relations. The Australian Council of Trade Unions ACTU also applauded the new Fair Work 2009 and named it as a turning of tide in work relations and for labourer’s rights (Cooper, 2009). Particularly for the good faith bargaining which was recognized by the President of the ACTU, Sharan Burrow, as one of the paramount alterations in the rule of collective bargaining and that it will guarantee that employers would be propelled to participate in reasonable bargaining with workers and unions over wage and working conditions (Brigden, 2009)).
Currently I am an employee at United petroleum.
It is an independent Australian owned petrol and convenience company which offers consumers premium quality fuels at competitive prices Australia-wide employing more than 2500 people. The workplace at United has very diverse employees from Australia as well as overseas employees working full time and students also working part time jobs. Earlier there have been several instances of complaints regarding unfair work relations, racial discrimination, pay rate lower than minimum wage rate. Fair Work Australia is a modern accessible body. Its focus is on delivering fast and effective assistance for employers and employees. There were two major unfair activities being practised at United. Employees were being paid $12 an hour which was way below the minimum wage rate of $16.87 per hour. Secondly, our store has got 2 operating consoles to attend customers and when the staff shift gets finished in the morning, the manager ask the night staff employee to work for extra 1 hour over his normal shift at the second console because the station gets very busy in the morning. The employee was not paid for for the extra time worked. The night staff reported this issue with Fair Work Australia. Fair work Australia intervened and successfully resolved the issues and directed the manager to pay fair wage rate to all employees with retrospective effect and penalty rates to employees working over their normal shift. Fair Work Act has been …show more content…
successful in ensuring that United petroleum continues to have fair approach towards their employees. Fair Work has certainly improved the conditions at the workplace that i am working with.
Conclusion:
Taking everything into account, it is clear that the nature of industrial relations has experienced dramatic changes in concept and procedure, as the role of trade unions has evolved to that of a social support with components of both the pluralistic and unitarist models. the Fair Work Act 2009 can be seen as a volte-face or complete change of economic liberal philosophy and policies in employment relations Fair Work has able to create a healthy balance between the powers of employer and employees. In spite of the fact that Fair work framework is there however it is the obligation of Government, employers and the lawful bodies whether it is working appropriately. A good friendly industrial relations should always exist between employer and employees to achieve industrial goals and for Australian economy to prosper further.
References:
Brigden, C. (2009). Unions and Collective Bargaining in 2008. Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 51(1), pp.365
Balnave, Nikola, Brown, Maconachie, & Raymond J Stone. (2009). Employment Relations in Australia. John Wiley & Sons Australia
Cooper, R. (2009), Forward with Fairness? Industrial Relations under Labor in 2008. Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 51(1), 285f
Deery, S.
& Plowman, D., 1991, Australian industrial relations (3rd ed). Sydney. McGraw Hill Publications, p.5
Fair Work Ombudsman, (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.fairwork.gov.au/Employee-entitlements/national-employment-standards
Gardner, M. & Palmer, G. (1997) Employment Relations: Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management in Australia (2nd edn), Melbourne: Macmillan, p.3
International Labour Conference. (2004). The Employment Relationship. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc95/pdf/rep-v-1.pdf
Kelly, D. (2003) A shock to the system? The impact of HRM on academic IR in Australia in comparison with the USA and UK, 1980–1995. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Vol 41(2) , pp. 149–71
Louise Floyd. (2009). Fair Work Laws: Good Faith Bargaining, Union Right of Entry and the Legal Notion of “Responsible Unionism, Carolyn Sutherland
Forsyth, A & Stewart, A. (2009). Making the “BOOT” Fit: Reforms to Agreement-Making from Work Choices to Fair Work’ in Fair Work 99, pp. 119
Rose, E.D. (2008). Employment Relations. (3rd ed).London: Pearson Education Ltd.
Stewart, G. and Horneman-Wren, S. (2006). A Watershed Year in the History of Australian Industrial Relations?. Employment Relations Record, Vol. 6(1), p.
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It is the intention of this essay to critically discuss and analyse the various relevant theories related to industrial relations and changes that had taken place since 2005 in industrial relations that have impacted employment relations at the workplace and how they improved the workplace conditions. This will be carried out by exhibiting the brief history industrial relations and changes in Australia. It will provide a brief overview of Fair Work Act 2009 in comparison to the Work Choices 2005 and rules and regulations relating to the employees work rights and benefits. Secondly, the essay will explain how Fair work has been able to improve the employment relations at the workplace. It will also outline the relevant HR theories …show more content…
related to it . Lastly, after discussing various relevant theories and examples, the conclusion will be drawn at the end.
Industrial relation is the relation in the middle of workers and their employer under legal frame-work over specific conditions. Industrial Relations is one of the most critical and important part of HRM. It is the commitment made between the workers and their employer to comply with the parties involved over work rights and riches under the contract (International Labour Conference 2004). Balnave et al. (2009) argues that industrial relationship assists in shaping the working environment as well as plays an essential part at present building a decent relationship in the middle of worker and business. The industrial relations fit in with three sets of performers. The three sets of performers in modern relations are employees and their union, employer and administration and the state. They cooperate and work within set of rules to create their better relationship (Deery & Plowman 1991). The commitment of the employer is to hire employees, decide their job and pay for the work performed by them (Gardner & Palmer 1997). The situation of industrial relations is seen distinctively by different individuals. For some, IR is identified with class conflicts, others see it regarding shared co-operation and still some understand it as competing interests of different groups. There are mainly three popular theories on IR namely unitarism, pluralism and radicalism. The unitarism theory view the organization as indicating towards a solitary or unified authority and structure of loyalty. under the unitary outlook, emphasis is set on common values, interests and goals. The fundamental presumption of this perspective is that the business organisation prevails in perfect harmony and any conflict is needless (Rose, 2008). The pluralistic thory completely differes from the unitarism. Pluralistic sees the organization as coalition of different sectional groups with diverse values, interests and targets. Accordingly, representatives have diverse qualities and desires from those of management, and they are always in conflict with management. The radical approach is marked by the capitalist theory which demonstrates a reasonable distinction in interests capital and work. This point of view sees imbalances of economic wealth and power. Existence of this approach demonstrates that conflict is inevitable in any organization because it is in contrast to human rights. Kelly (2003) proposes that, while mechanical relations has an institutional centre with most attention toward trade unions, management associations, and the state agencies like arbitration systems, HR management has a managerialistic centre, which is concerned with the control and management of workplace relations. Employees sometimes do not get the proper payment for their work performed or employers do not provide them with fair work conditions. The Humanitarian, Cooperative and Marxist concepts of the early 1900s underlined the possible conflict of interests of a worker and boss in advanced industry, circumstances that established the frameworks for the development of trade unions and employement relations. So, there are always some conflict between the workers/trade unions and employers or management regarding wages, working hours, conditions, holidays and annual leaves allowed to employees. To deal with these conflicts and maintain cordial industrial relations, some changes are always needed in the workplace. Changes in work environment relations have happened all through history.
The most notable change happened when Work choices was presented in 2005 by Liberal government. The impact of the change was significant to the point that eventually brought on the Liberal government to lose the command in 2007. Work Choices or Workplace Relations Amendment Act 2005 was an amendment of Workplace Relations Act 1996 that included many controversial changes to the previous Act of 1996. The major changes in the Work Choices were, diminishing number of allowable matters to be covered under awards, exclusion of organizations with less than 101 workers from unfair dismissal laws, escalating restrictions on allowable industrial actions and setting up Australian Fair Pay Commission to decide minimum wages and working hours. All other terms and situations of employment were negotiable among employers and workers (Stewart, 2008). Work Choices 2005 made it much harder for unions to build and keep up collective agreement and more troublesome for them to utilize customary bargaining tools without exposing employees to fines and lawful actions. Because to its unpopularity, Work choices was voted out in 2009 and was substituted by Fair Work Act. There was a remarkable change from 2010 in work environment relations. In the new working environment connection framework managers and workers have the same working environment rights and commitments, irrespective to the state they work in. Modern awards together with the National Employment Standards (NES) and the national least wage order, make up new safety net for employees (Fair Work Australia, 2012). The reason for the recompense modernisation was to avoid employee’s exploitation, abuse and biased dismissals. The Fair Work Act 2009 was the result of extensive meeting and discussion with business organizations, the unions and the more widespread community and drafting, providing an prospect for period of stability in Australia 's industrial development (Floyd, 2009). Fair Work Australia has the authority to vary awards, make minimum wage guidelines, approve agreements, determine unfair dismissal claims and make instructions on such matters as good faith bargaining and industrial action, to aid employees and employers resolve disputes at the workplace. There are 10 minimum entitlements in National Employment Standards(NES) under Fair Work Act 2009 which are: a maximum standard working week of 38 hours for full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours, a right to request flexible working provisions, parental leave of 12 months, with a right to request an additional 12 months, four weeks paid annual leave each year, ten days paid personal/carer’s leave each year, two days paid compassionate leave for each permitted occasion, and two days unpaid carer’s leave for each permitted occasion, community service leave for jury service or activities dealing with certain emergencies, long service leave, public holidays and the right to be paid for ordinary hours on those days, notice of termination and redundancy pay, the right for new employees to get the Fair Work Information Statement (Fair Work Ombudsman, n.d.). Fair work has created a balance between the powers of employees and employers for maintaining good industrial relations. The Australian Council of Trade Unions ACTU also applauded the new Fair Work 2009 and named it as a turning of tide in work relations and for labourer’s rights (Cooper, 2009). Particularly for the good faith bargaining which was recognized by the President of the ACTU, Sharan Burrow, as one of the paramount alterations in the rule of collective bargaining and that it will guarantee that employers would be propelled to participate in reasonable bargaining with workers and unions over wage and working conditions (Brigden, 2009)).
Currently I am an employee at United petroleum.
It is an independent Australian owned petrol and convenience company which offers consumers premium quality fuels at competitive prices Australia-wide employing more than 2500 people. The workplace at United has very diverse employees from Australia as well as overseas employees working full time and students also working part time jobs. Earlier there have been several instances of complaints regarding unfair work relations, racial discrimination, pay rate lower than minimum wage rate. Fair Work Australia is a modern accessible body. Its focus is on delivering fast and effective assistance for employers and employees. There were two major unfair activities being practised at United. Employees were being paid $12 an hour which was way below the minimum wage rate of $16.87 per hour. Secondly, our store has got 2 operating consoles to attend customers and when the staff shift gets finished in the morning, the manager ask the night staff employee to work for extra 1 hour over his normal shift at the second console because the station gets very busy in the morning. The employee was not paid for for the extra time worked. The night staff reported this issue with Fair Work Australia. Fair work Australia intervened and successfully resolved the issues and directed the manager to pay fair wage rate to all employees with retrospective effect and penalty rates to employees working over their normal shift. Fair Work Act has been …show more content…
successful in ensuring that United petroleum continues to have fair approach towards their employees. Fair Work has certainly improved the conditions at the workplace that i am working with.
Conclusion:
Taking everything into account, it is clear that the nature of industrial relations has experienced dramatic changes in concept and procedure, as the role of trade unions has evolved to that of a social support with components of both the pluralistic and unitarist models. the Fair Work Act 2009 can be seen as a volte-face or complete change of economic liberal philosophy and policies in employment relations Fair Work has able to create a healthy balance between the powers of employer and employees. In spite of the fact that Fair work framework is there however it is the obligation of Government, employers and the lawful bodies whether it is working appropriately. A good friendly industrial relations should always exist between employer and employees to achieve industrial goals and for Australian economy to prosper further.
References:
Brigden, C. (2009). Unions and Collective Bargaining in 2008. Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 51(1), pp.365
Balnave, Nikola, Brown, Maconachie, & Raymond J Stone. (2009). Employment Relations in Australia. John Wiley & Sons Australia
Cooper, R. (2009), Forward with Fairness? Industrial Relations under Labor in 2008. Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 51(1), 285f
Deery, S.
& Plowman, D., 1991, Australian industrial relations (3rd ed). Sydney. McGraw Hill Publications, p.5
Fair Work Ombudsman, (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.fairwork.gov.au/Employee-entitlements/national-employment-standards
Gardner, M. & Palmer, G. (1997) Employment Relations: Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management in Australia (2nd edn), Melbourne: Macmillan, p.3
International Labour Conference. (2004). The Employment Relationship. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc95/pdf/rep-v-1.pdf
Kelly, D. (2003) A shock to the system? The impact of HRM on academic IR in Australia in comparison with the USA and UK, 1980–1995. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Vol 41(2) , pp. 149–71
Louise Floyd. (2009). Fair Work Laws: Good Faith Bargaining, Union Right of Entry and the Legal Notion of “Responsible Unionism, Carolyn Sutherland
Forsyth, A & Stewart, A. (2009). Making the “BOOT” Fit: Reforms to Agreement-Making from Work Choices to Fair Work’ in Fair Work 99, pp. 119
Rose, E.D. (2008). Employment Relations. (3rd ed).London: Pearson Education Ltd.
Stewart, G. and Horneman-Wren, S. (2006). A Watershed Year in the History of Australian Industrial Relations?. Employment Relations Record, Vol. 6(1), p.
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