Today’s union officals are often well educated, trained and practiced in the use of strategy, tactics and legislation to advance their interests through enterprise bargaining. Our perspective, based upon more than 30 years experience in the area, is that employers are today generally less well prepared and less adept regardless of the legislation that is in place. The employer representatives are, more often than not, only bargaining on an irregular basis, whilst the union representatives may be constantly bargaining with different employers.
Employers are also understandably more focused on managing their core business during a period of high economic uncertainty and social change.
Our ‘80:20 view’ is that in the main, collective or enterprise bargaining goes on pretty much regardless of whatever legislative framework for enterprise bargaining is in place. Some industries or worksites have always been unionised to some extent and probably will continue that way under governments of either political persuasion.
However, this “broad brush” view of things doesn’t mean that the Fair Work Act doesn’t ever impact on enterprise bargaining, and in some instances it can have very significant consequences for the nature of bargaining that does occur, and the content of agreements reached.
One such change has been the introduction of ‘good faith bargaining’ which requires parties to bargain in good faith, including –
• attending, and participating in, meetings at reasonable times
• disclosing relevant information (other than confidential or commercially sensitive information) in a timely manner
• responding to proposals made by other bargaining representatives for the agreement in a timely manner
Adept union negotiators will use ‘good faith bargaining’ and ‘protected’ industrial action to great advantage in driving a negotiated outcome. Employers need to dramatically enhance their skills and knowledge around enterprise bargaining strategy, tactics and generally “muscle up” to meet the challenge associated with negotiating an enterprise agreement in today’s more demanding world.
EnterpriseBargaining.com.au comment - we conduct high-end negotiations training, which includes technical requirements of the Act (including ‘good faith bargaining’ and ‘protected action’) to help employers avoid missteps , and to arm them with the skills, knowledge, strategy and tactics they need to achieve good bargaining results. Check out our next courses here.
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