A Federal Court judge has speculated that he might have been "overly pessimistic" when he rejected suggestions that a FWC full bench displayed bias when sharing with parties its concerns about an already-approved agreement.
As the FWC prepares for the Secure Jobs's bargaining and industrial action components to start on June 6, it has signalled that it plans to devote a substantial amount of members' time to the new mandatory pre-industrial-action conferences to try to facilitate agreements and will expect a similar commitment from parties.
A distinctly elementary counting error has led to a FWC full bench quashing the rejection of a non-union university deal and returning it to the member for reconsideration.
As the FWC seeks feedback on draft principles it will have to factor in when deciding whether deals are genuinely agreed, an early ACTU submission lists multiple ways employers should facilitate union involvement, along with a "rebuttable presumption" it is authentic where registered unions support approval.
The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association says it is doing its job by developing a roadmap for securing fast rollover agreements to avoid universities being "roped in" to multi-employer deals.
A new discussion paper to encourage debate and inform the FWC's drafting of a statement of principles on genuine agreement in bargaining asks for feedback on whether the Commission should take a prescriptive approach in response to the removal of detailed pre-approval obligations.
The FWC has confirmed that unions applying for a MSD can demonstrate support for bargaining by subsequently providing individual declarations from workers who did not initially cast a vote.
FWC general manager Murray Furlong has referred hospitality company Mantle Group's HR manager to the Australian Federal Police for possible criminal prosecution after the tribunal found he deliberately provided false or misleading information about a substandard agreement that allowed the employer to ask workers to perform voluntary additional hours without penalty rates.
An employer that used the wrong company name in its bargaining notice has failed to convince the FWC that it amounted to a minor procedural or technical error that it should overlook when considering whether to approve its agreement.
The FWC will start consultations this month on the statement of principles to underpin the Secure Jobs Act's less "prescriptive" approach to considering whether enterprise deals have been genuinely agreed, which it is required to finalise by early June.
