Huge Delays in Enterprise Agreement Approvals – Undertakings Double

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has released its Annual Report 2017-18 and the data on enterprise agreement approvals makes for grim reading.

The FWC received 5,287 applications for approval of an enterprise agreement in the period.  Of those, 4,639 agreements were finalised.  Almost one in five finalised agreements were never approved (i.e. 1 per cent refused and 17 per cent withdrawn).

The FWC took more than twice the time to finalise agreements compared to its target, with a median time of 76 days against the budget statement target of 32 days.  The Report refers to the FWC’s “increasingly rigorous approach to processing agreement approvals” as a reason for the significant delays in finalising applications.  Another factor is the number of agreements requiring undertakings to be approved.  The proportion of agreements approved with undertakings has risen massively over the past few years.  In July-December 2016, only 35 per cent of agreements were approved with undertakings.  Just a year later, the figure had skyrocketed to 70 per cent.

Commenting on the Report, ES Director, Chris Muir said the figures were not surprising:

Anyone who’s been exposed to the agreement approval process in the last few years will know there’s been significant changes in the Commission’s approach.  The legislation hasn’t changed, but the approach to scrutinising agreements has changed markedly in the wake of some embarrassing episodes, including the Coles matter.  We’ve heard of agreements taking eight months to be finalised.  It’s very disappointing and it’s had a negative impact on enterprise bargaining generally.