Role of Fair Work Commission in Australian Employment Relations

This article explores the role of the Fair Work Commission in the Australian employment relations system, including its functions, activities, and effectiveness. It also discusses the importance of dispute resolution and the impact of modern awards.

Running head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
The committee of national workplace relations in Australia is known as Fair Work
Commission. The independent body reflects the power to facilitate a wide range of purposes,
which comprises of offering safety net for minimum conditions like minimum wages in the
form of awards, develop positive faith bargaining and for the purpose of forming enterprise
agreements (australia.gov.au, 2019). It also includes controlling of the industrial actions,
resolving individual as well as the collective workplace disputes and dealing with requests in
regards to unfair dismissal (australia.gov.au, 2019). The functions includes the varying
awards for wage structure, approval of industrial agreements, resolution of disputes as well as
the handling of unfair dismissal activity. The act is considered as the successor body of the
Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The purpose of the paper is to understand the
role of the Fair Work Commission as well as to assess the efficiency in regards with the
modern awards in Australia. The paper will be concluded by presenting the summary of the
key roles of Fair Work Commission in Australian employment relations system.
The initiation of functions as well as the activities undertaken by Fair Work
Commission is facilitated when an individual lodges a request. The requests should be in the
correct form of Commission as well as lodged in regards with the 2013 rules and procedure
of Fair Work Commission (australia.gov.au, 2019). Commission deals with the applications
by undertaking activities for responding to a request (australia.gov.au, 2019). The actions
includes informal dispute resolution by referring the applications/requests to a specific staff
conciliator, by allotting directions for dealing an application. It also includes requesting
individuals with an application for appearing before the Fair Work Commission. The
Commission also invites submission in writing or verbal form followed by taking evidences
(Australian Human Rights Commission, 2016). The Commission conducts conferences, holds
hearings as well as take decisions. The Fair Work Commission can terminate
applications/requests in specific circumstances (australia.gov.au, 2019).

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The Fair Work Act 2009 set out the independent statutory body, Fair Work
Commission. The services of the Fair Work Commission are free for all the employees as
well as the workers in Australia. The key role of the Commission is to ensure agreement with
the laws of Australian workplace (australia.gov.au, 2019). Another major role is to promote
productive, cooperative and harmonious employee relations. The role also involves
monitoring specific 482 and 457 subclass agreements for Visa. The services includes
educating and training people in Australia about the fair work practices, obligations as well as
the rights of the employees (australia.gov.au, 2019). The system also facilitates the single
point contact in regards with the timely and well as the reliable information about the
employee relations system of Australia. It ensures the assessment of various discrepancy as
well as the suspected breaches in regards with the laws, registered agreements as well as the
awards of the workplace as well as few of the Fair Work Commission orders. It attempts to
build effective and strong relationships with all the industries, stakeholders as well as the
unions operating in Australia (australia.gov.au, 2019).
The roles of Fair Work Commission also includes providing fair opportunities for all
employees/workers in Australia for putting forward their discrepancy cases as well as
ensuring a fair dealing of the cases. It ensures fair and just practices. The Commission acts
quickly for the submission of applications (Stanford, Hardy & Stewart, 2018). The Fair Work
Commission plays a transparent and informal role for the motive of promoting cooperative as
well as harmonious workplace as well as the employee relations (Stanford, Hardy & Stewart,
2018). The role of the Fair Work Commission also includes the practice of Conciliation,
which is considered as the alternative of dispute resolution. An informal, flexible as well as
the quick procedure of dispute resolution is known as Conciliation. In the case of
Conciliation, the role of the Fair Work Commission is to appoint senior staff for the purpose
of assisting employees and employers for putting forwards various manners for resolving
dispute by themselves in regards with the termination of employment (Ross AO, 2016). The

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role of a Commission employed Conciliator is to assist the employees for identifying ways
for conflict/dispute resolutions, which can eliminate the requirement for conducting hearing
(Grayson, 2016). Another role of the Fair Work Commission is to provide safe environment
for all the associated parties (Stanford, Hardy & Stewart, 2018). A party can communicate
the concerns of safety in front of the Commission in regards with the hearing as well as the
conference for which effective steps can be taken. The role of the Fair Work Commission
also includes decision-making as well as constructing orders. The commission is responsible
for publishing the set decisions in the end of every single hearing. Fair Work Commission
also constructs orders in few cases of applications/requests. The website of the Commission
reflects the orders and decisions (Stanford, Hardy & Stewart, 2018).
The modern awards are required to be inclusive of the terms, which is considered to
form a procedure regarding the dispute resolutions between the employees and the
employers. Every single modern awards are expected to include clause in regards with
dispute resolution. The process of the clause will included various steps (Stanford, Hardy &
Stewart, 2018). The very first step will be the meeting of employee with the supervisor for
facilitating the discussion of the grievances (Thornthwaite, 2017). The next step includes the
case of a failed resolution, which will extend the matter with higher level of management
(Stanford, Hardy & Stewart, 2018). After the failing of resolution in the second stage, the
matter/dispute is referred to senior level management or to the national officer of a specific
organization. If the dispute is still not resolved, the matters can be referred to the Fair Work
Commission. The process of hearing can also be represented by the another appointed body
in association with the specific organization (Power, 2017).
The effectiveness of the Fair Work Commission can be assessed by considering few
features of the act. There are various concerning factors in the new regulations
(Thornthwaite, 2017). For instance, the practice of low-paid bargaining, which presents the
possibility of multi-employer bargaining as well as end-point arbitration (Bishop & Cassidy,

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2017). The practice encourages the involvement of a third party, which is Fair Work
Commission Australia instead of the allowing the employees and employers for agreeing on
wages as well as working conditions according to their conditions (Buchanan & Oliver,
2016). The mismanagement of modernised award system and increase complexity developed
the confusion as well as the workers are experiencing additional expenses (Campbell &
Burgess, 2018). The additional expenses are both direct as well as in the practice of
compliance (Stanford, Hardy & Stewart, 2018). The complexity of the modern awards
distracted the sole purpose of the policy as well as created doubts in regards with the
acceptability of the government. One of the concerns, which was identified was the mirror
image of the earlier practice regarding the payment of ‘walk-away’ money for underserving
ex-worker. However, the modern awards reflects the feature of replacing non-union
compliances with the union agreements (Stanford, Hardy & Stewart, 2018).
Therefore, it can be concluded by the paper that the main role of the Fair Work
Commission is to ensure harmony, fair practices as well as productivity in a workplace
environment. The role of the Fair Work Commission is also to ensure the employee relations
in an organization, which will in return increase the transparency of the system as well as will
increase the productivity of the organization. All the employers and employees should be
familiar of the dispute resolution process, which applies to every single organization in
Australia.

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References:
Australian Human Rights Commission. (2016). Willing to work: national inquiry into
employment discrimination against older Australians and Australians with disability
(2016).
Bishop, J., & Cassidy, N. (2017). Insights into low wage growth in Australia. RBA Bulletin,
March, 13-20.
Buchanan, J., & Oliver, D. (2016). ‘Fair Work’and the Modernization of Australian Labour
Standards: A Case of Institutional Plasticity Entrenching Deepening Wage Inequality.
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(4), 790-814.
Campbell, I., & Burgess, J. (2018). Patchy progress? Two decades of research on
precariousness and precarious work in Australia. Labour & Industry: a journal of the
social and economic relations of work, 28(1), 48-67.
australia.gov.au. (2019). Fair Work Commission | australia.gov.au. [Online] Retrieved from
https://www.australia.gov.au/directories/australia/fwc
Grayson, A. (2016). A how to guide to the Fair Work Commission. Precedent (Sydney,
NSW), (135), 14.
Power, C. (2017). The Fair Work Commission's new approach. Governance Directions,
69(9), 540.
Ross AO, J. I. (2016). Future Directions: Enhancing the public value of the Fair Work
Commission. Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(3), 402-418.
Stanford, J., Hardy, T., & Stewart, A. (2018). Australia we have a problem. The wages crisis
in Australia: What it is and what to do about it, 3-20.

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Thornthwaite, L. (2017). The living wage crisis in Australian industrial relations. Labour &
Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 27(4), 261-269.