A Comprehensive Report on the Fair Work Act 2009: Employee Rights

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), the primary legislation governing workplaces in Australia, focusing on its impact on employee rights and protections. It examines the Act's introduction by the Labor government to replace the unpopular Work Choices legislation, aiming to improve employee lives by addressing power imbalances and unfair practices. The report highlights key changes, including the right to organize, collective bargaining, and the establishment of the Fair Work Australia to ensure employee rights. It explores enhanced employee protections against unfair dismissal, wage fairness, and the abolition of AWA, introducing enterprise agreements and good-faith bargaining. The report uses the case of Barclay v Board of Bendigo Regional Institute of Technical and Further Education (2011) FCAFC as an example. The report also discusses the positive impact on union participation and workplace fairness, while acknowledging areas for improvement, such as flexible working hours and the good-faith bargaining system. It concludes by emphasizing the Act's significant contribution to rebalancing power dynamics in Australian workplaces, while recognizing the need for further legislative developments to fully support the workforce.

(b) The enactment of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).
The Fair Work Act 2009 is the main legislation, which governs the workplaces in Australia. The
Fair Work Act provides the foundation for all the regulations and standards related with
employment. Therefore, it is significant for the employers in all industries and all business sizes
to be familiar with this key piece of legislation. The rows or obligations that have been
mentioned in the Fair Work Act for employees and employers are known as the national
workplace relations system (Gostencnik, 2009). This system has been introduced the bill to
provide a balanced framework related with productive workplace relations so that national
economic prosperity can be promoting and the social inclusion for all Australians can be
ensured. Hence, this means that this legislation has been introduced for the good of all and there
are no subjective or biased perspectives presented in this legislation.
Fair Work Act (Cth) was introduced in 2009 by the Labor government. This legislation replace
the earlier work choices legislation, which was quite unpopular. Therefore the main aim of
introducing the Act was to improve the lives of the employees at workplaces in Australia. This
was the reason that it was delayed by a number of Australians that the employers have too much
power as compared to the employees due to bridge the employees were forced to agree to
working hours and images that were not up to their expectations. It was claimed that the earlier
legislation, before the implementation of the Fair Work Act undermines the rights of the workers
and they had considerably less control over their own workplace choices and the earlier
legislation also allowed unfair dismissals by the end was to go unchecked. One of the more
significant changes introduced by the new Act was the right to organize provided to the
employees (Catanzariti and Shariff, 2005). The earlier legislation has the provisions regarding

union interaction at the workplace. Similarly, it was also discouraged by the employers and the
industrial relations law. On the other hand, the Fair Work Act not only supports the involvement
of the Union but it also encourages it in two ways. The first is in the form of enterprise
agreements, and the other is the right to organize. Therefore, now the employees are allowed to
bring union representatives at the workplace and talk to them during their break, although a
notice has to be given a full 24 hours. This has been hailed as a significant improvement and
expected to have a positive impact on participation by the union, although there are certain issues
that still need to be resolved in this context.
Another major change, introduced by this legislation is the right to collective bargaining. It is
said that this writer has a major impact on the employees at the Australian workplaces. This Act
has returned a number of rights that were taken away by the Work Choices Act in 2006. Some of
these rights included the new Award safety net , as well as the Fair Work Australia (for the
purpose of ensuring that the rights of employees are protected) and the right of low-paid workers
to bargain collectively. The result of the introduction of all these changes is that there has been a
decrease in the number of working days that are lost in industrial disputes. Hence it can be said
that the Act had a positive impact on the employers when it comes to respecting the rights of the
employees (Ford, 2000).
Employee Workplace Protections: The protections provided to the Australian employees were
strengthened considerably as a result of the implementation of this Act. The main areas where
this impact can be seen are the increase in minimum wage, protection against unfair dismissal
and protection from unfair changes as well as the elimination of unfair individual contracts. The
protection provided to the employees against unfair dismissal can be described as a major area of
impact, particularly when it is compared to the unbalanced dismissal laws that were present in

the Work Choices Act. As a result of the new regulations, protection has been provided to all
employees who are in employment for more than 12 months, against unfair dismissal. It had a
major impact in ensuring the prevention of unfair dismissal faced by the elderly, female or
disabled employees on very unjust grounds (Cooney, 2006). After the implementation of this
Act, now the employees can make a claim for unfair dismissal in such cases. Moreover, it is
treated as conversation and has significant impact on the protections provided to the employees
who have to deal with unlawful unfair dismissal. An example that can be given in this regard is
that of Barclay v Board of Bendigo Regional Institute of Technical and Further Education (2011)
FCAFC. The brief facts of this case are that Barclay, an employee of the Board, was also a
member of Australian Education Union. He took action for the Union who had contacted him
regarding their questions concerning the upcoming audit and fraudulent documents. In response
to his questions, the CEO sends an e-mail to all of the employees and warned them against
talking to Barclay. Moreover, he was suspended from employment and coming to work and his
access to Internet was also cut. The court ruled that all this amounted to adverse action. The
reason was that Barclay was acting as an official of the Union at the time. He was involved in
industrial action. When he was suspended and cut off from Internet. This was the first case that
was ruled under the new Act by the High Court. This decision also reveals the complete extent of
the protections provided to the employees by the new legislation and also the support provided
by it to the union members.
Another important change that is the result of this Act, and that has an impact on the protections
provided at the workplace in Australia was the abolition of AWA and introducing enterprise
agreements as well as good-faith bargaining. Good faith bargaining had much positive impact on
the workforce of Australia regarding adaptability and flexibility and also in terms of the claims

that in the first 10 months of the introduction of this Act, the number of individuals that were
covered by any demand increased by 10 percent. As a result of this agreement system, now the
employees cannot be made to sign a contract due to which the employees may get less money
than they are already getting. As a result of these changes, there has been greater participation by
the unions in the process of agreement negotiation. Due to this reason, the employees now have a
greater voice in the bargaining and the process of contract negotiating. All this has considerable
impact on issues like union intervention while under the earlier legislation; the voice of the
employees was limited.
In the end, it can be said that the implementation of Fair Work Act, 2009. There has been a major
impact on the rights and protections that have been provided to the workforce in Australia. These
changes are particularly positive in context of the rights enjoyed by the employees regarding
union participation and action without the fear of reprimand (Billing, 2009). This position has
also been established with the help of Barclay decision and also the protections related with
good-faith bargaining and wage fairness when the employee contracts were drawn. In fact,
factors like these that have been discussed in the present work resulted in creating a strong
impact on the reestablishment of the power imbalance that was created as a result of the Work
Choices Act (Catanzariti, 2001). However, it needs to be mentioned that still in Australia, there
is much need for the development of industrial relations laws so that the workforce of Australia
can be assured that it is supported in the same way as required. Hence there certain areas of the
workforce that there has been only a limited impact on the rights and protections and therefore,
further legislative changes are also required.
Although the introduction of Fair Work Act has been welcomed but still there are certain there
are some shortcomings like the need for having even better safety net, which provides a

confidence to the employees to create a work-life balance. It has been claimed that a limited
impact was present on the rights of the employees to claim flexible working hours as these
cannot be claimed in case of aged parents or the children over the age of five years. Similarly, it
is also been stated that there are certain problems present with the good-faith bargaining system.
Therefore, there is a need for fairer and more appropriate options in case of different types of
businesses.

References
Billing, S., (2009) ‘Fair Work Act 2009: Fairer for Whom?’ 8
Catanzariti J. and Shariff, Y., (2005) ‘Major Tribunal Decisions in 2004’ 47(2) The Journal of
Industrial Relations186
Catanzariti, J., (2001) ‘Freedom of association restrictions on outsourcing’ Law Society Journal
48
Cooney, S., (2006) ‘Command and control in the Workplace: Agreement-making under Work
Choices’ 16(2) The Economic and Labour Relations Review 147
Ford, W J, (2000) ‘Being There: Changing Union Rights Of Entry Under Federal Industrial Law’
13 AJLL 1
Gostencnik, V., (2009) ‘Fair Work Bill 2008: What You Need to Know Now About the New 23
Hall, R. (2005) ‘Australian Industrial Relations in 2005–The WorkChoices Revolution’ 48(3)
Journal of Industrial Relations 291
Industrial Landscape (Part 2)’ Keeping Good Companies, Corrs Chambers Westgarth