Essay MMH709: Employee Relations for Organisational Effectiveness – Management Assignment Help

Assignemnt Task:

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s (2017) ‘best practice guide [for] Improving workplace productivity in bargaining’ heralds a range of advantages associated with enterprise bargaining: 

The Fair Work Act 2009 promotes productivity, fairness and cooperation through an emphasis on enterprise-level collective bargaining, underpinned by simple good faith bargaining obligations and clear rules regulating industrial action. Enterprise bargaining is a way of fostering a culture of change in the workplace and is a valuable tool in the process of continuous improvement. It can assist in the creation of responsive and flexible enterprises and help to improve productivity and efficiency. Increased productivity can provide higher wages to workers or more secure and satisfying work, higher profits to employers and lower priced goods and services to the public. 

Sally McManus (2018), the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has different view, as she has declared that the present system of enterprise bargaining is ‘broken’: 

When we moved to an enterprise bargaining system, we imagined that the vast majority of Australian workers would be covered by enterprise agreements. Awards would only be a safety-net for a small number of workers. In response our award system has been stripped back to the bare minimum. But, enterprise bargaining is failing, and more and more people are depending on hollowed out awards. … Enterprise bargaining is so restrictive, so excessively regulated, it is smothering wage growth. The economy cannot grow unless wages grow. Working people must have greater freedom to negotiate and our laws must assist them even up the power imbalance so they can negotiate fair pay increases. 

Clearly there is a difference of opinion here about how the enterprise bargaining system is operating under the Fair Work Act 2009. This assessment task has three aims. The first is to give you an appreciation of the legal processes involved in enterprise bargaining. The second is to give the opportunity to work with the Fair Work Act 2009 and acquaint you with its language and regulatory content. The final aim is to put you in touch with an important and still unfolding debate that has emerged over the efficacy of the present system of enterprise bargaining. To these ends, the assignment asks you to answer the following three questions. 

1. Under the terms of the Fair Work Act 2009, what does the process of enterprise bargaining entail? (10 marks) 

2. What views are held by trade unions and employer associations towards the present system of enterprise bargaining? (20 marks) 

3. What evidence can or has been brought to bear in support of these views?