In a decision pointing to the circumstances under which zombie deals can survive beyond December's drop-dead date, a four-member FWC bench has extended a 2004 agreement by almost 18 months after accepting it provides "significantly" better pay than the award and that negotiations have already begun for a replacement deal.
More than 100,000 'zombie' agreements stretching back 30 years will be automatically axed in December if no application is made for an extension, employers have been reminded.
A FWC full bench has thwarted a multinational company's attempt to end to a 30-year practice of maintenance workers banking two hours' leave a week in lieu of pay rises, finding a member wrongly concluded the arrangement could be changed when its agreement reached its nominal expiry date.
The Coalition has today revealed a pre-election compromise position on its long-held push for "life-of-project" agreements, which would have a maximum term of six years, down on the eight-year regime jettisoned from its IR Omnibus Bill, but unions say it amounts to another Government strategy to cap pay rises.
The TWU's in-principle three-year agreement with Australia Post subsidiary StarTrack will deliver annual wage rises that match CPI increases in the second and third years of the deal if inflation exceeds 3%.
In a decision illustrating the delicate balancing act required of the FWC when considering axing old agreements, a recently-employed worker has succeeding in having a security company's 15-year-old deal scrapped over the loud objections of all but a few of his fellow employees.
A senior FWC member has scrapped a multinational dredging company's expired deal so it can better compete for "new market opportunities", despite union claims that lower wages will send skilled workers elsewhere and that the current lack of projects is only temporary.
A Fair Work commissioner has rejected fellow tribunal members' "erroneous" interpretations of an established authority to dismiss a classification dispute commenced under a since-expired deal.
Now that the Morrison Government has decided to extend the maximum terms of greenfields agreements for major projects, employers say the principle should apply more widely to non-greenfields agreements covering subcontractors on such jobs.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has pledged to hold a national summit between business and unions if he wins the federal election on Saturday, in another nod to the Hawke era of consensus-building in the 1980s.
