Welcome to the first online annual report by the Fair Work Commission. This is an initiative which we hope will make the information we provide more accessible to the community.

This past year has been a very busy one for the Commission. We’ve seen the introduction of a new anti-bullying jurisdiction; the conferral of additional functions on the Tribunal, as well as the continuation of our change program, Future Directions.

Anti-bullying Jurisdiction

The new anti-bullying jurisdiction commenced on the first of January this year. But well before the new jurisdiction came in, the Commission was hard at work with its key stakeholders to develop an appropriate case management model to ensure that the new jurisdiction worked effectively.

We also published a range of information materials on our website about the new jurisdiction including a benchbook to assist the parties. I am pleased to say that most of the cases that we’ve dealt with have been successfully resolved by conciliation facilitated by the Commission. We will continue to review and improve our processes in this important new jurisdiction.

Among other changes the Fair Work Amendment Act provided the Commission with an important new function—to promote cooperative and productive workplaces and to prevent disputes.

We’re developing a comprehensive strategy to enable us to effectively implement this new function. At its heart it’s about assisting the parties at a workplace level to create a more productive workplace and one that’s more adaptive to change. It’s about dispute prevention, rather than settlement. It’s about responding to the wishes of parties when they seek the Commission’s involvement and about facilitating a better outcome for all parties.

There’s a case study in this year’s annual report about Sydney Water that provides you with an example of our work in this important and growing area.

Our future directions

The past 15 years has seen a significant change in the type of matters that come to the Tribunal and also in the nature of the parties that appear before us.

Increasingly, we are dealing with individual grievances and with self-represented parties. 15 years ago two thirds of our work was collective dispute resolution, where the parties were experienced players—they understood the Act and the Commission’s processes.

Increasingly we’re dealing with self-represented parties who have limited experience with the Tribunal. We have an obligation to explain how the Act works and how our processes work to self-represented parties.

Over the past 12 months we have developed and implemented a comprehensive change program called Future Directions to better meet the needs of the parties who now appear before us.

The focus of Future Directions is on delivering public value in four key areas:

• Promoting fairness and improving access
• Encouraging efficiency and innovation
• Increasingly accountability
• Improved productivity and engaging with industry.

By December 2013 we had successfully implemented all 25 initiatives in the initial phase of the Future Directions change program. These initiatives included a range of new benchbooks dealing with unfair dismissals, general protections, and the new anti-bullying jurisdictions.

These benchbooks provide in simple language a summary of the key principles from the most important decisions in each of these jurisdictions. They provide important information to assist, particularly, self-represented parties, in understanding the cases in which they are going to be appearing in.

We have also launched a new website with an easier navigation structure for particular users including employees, employers, organisations and small business. We will continue to develop and improve the website in response to feedback we receive from the users.

For unrepresented parties and first time users, coming to the Commission can be a daunting experience. With that in mind, in 2013 we launched a virtual tour of the Commission. This is intended to give parties—particularly to unfair dismissal matters—an insight into how their matter would be heard and determined by the Commission.

By giving parties this sort of information we hope that it will make our processes more accessible and also increase their understanding of the Commission’s processes. We intend to extend this initiative to other jurisdictions such as general protections and anti-bullying over the course of the next two years.

Future Directions is an ongoing change program. In May this year we launched a further 30 initiatives that we intend to implement over the course of the next two years. Details of those initiatives can be found in our annual report. They are all directed at making the Commission a more efficient, fair, accessible and accountable national institution.

Our performance

In last year’s annual report we announced that we had introduced two important timeliness benchmarks—one dealing with reserved decisions and the other dealing with the approval of agreements. I’m pleased to report that we are continuing to make improvements in these areas and have consistently shown improvement across a range of these benchmarks. Not all of the timeliness benchmarks are meeting their target. We will continue to work hard in this area to improve our performance.

We have also introduced new timeliness benchmarks particularly in relation to dealing with appeals both in terms of the time taken to get an appeal heard and the time taken to deliver a decision in relation to an appeal. The introduction of these benchmarks and an increased focus on the efficiency of the appeal process has improved our performance in this area.

All of these initiatives provide greater certainty for parties. They can lodge an application with confidence that it will be dealt with in a timely way and we will continue to focus on this important area of our work.

The year ahead

As public institutions, courts and tribunals depend on the support of the community for their legitimacy. Accountability and transparency are vital to ensure that support.

We will continue to review our processes and the services we deliver to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the community. We will also continue to report on our outcomes and on our timeliness to ensure that we are accountable to the community that we serve.

The past year has also seen some changes in the composition of the membership of the Commission. We’ve seen the retirement of Commissioner Macdonald and the resignations of Deputy President Parsons and Expert Panel Member Allen. We’ve also seen the appointment of Deputy President Kovacic. I thank those that have left the Tribunal for their work over many years and I welcome Deputy President Kovacic to the Commission.

I’d also like to thank our key stakeholders for their contribution to the work of the Commission, particularly in the implementation of the Future Directions initiatives.

And finally, I’d like to thank all of our Members and staff for their hard work, commitment and dedication and for helping make a great institution better.

The Fair Work Commission touches the lives of most Australians in a number of ways.

It’s been around since shortly after federation and it plays a really critical role in the community by being part of the safety net of employment standards and providing a fair and independent place for disputes to be resolved.

Last year’s been a year of change, innovation and improvement. We’ve undertaken the first wave of a change program, Future Directions, and I’m really pleased that we were able to complete 25 initiatives. The Commission, like most public sector agencies and indeed many organisations in the community, we face ongoing budget challenges. We need to constantly find ways to deliver the really quality services but in really efficient ways and within the resources that government gives us to do that.

Anti-bullying jurisdiction

The anti-bullying jurisdiction is a new function that the Commission was charged with from the first of January this year and it provides an avenue to deal with complaints of bullying in the workplace.

Developing the processes and procedures to deal with this new jurisdiction was challenging because of its uniqueness. We worked hard to consult very broadly in the development of the materials and are continuing and will continue to refine and develop them as the jurisdiction unfolds.

The early indications are that the processes and information are working well. Our experience in the first six months has been that we’ve had for example more than 100,000 website hits, we’ve had more than 3,500 phone enquiries resulting in 350 applications in the first six months.

Registered organisations

A registered organisation is an employer or an employee organisation that is registered under the federal legislation—so employer organisations and trade unions. We have a number of functions and effectively are the regulator of registered organisations under the national scheme. We’ve taken a very conscious decision that I spoke about in last year’s annual report about our approach to that regulatory function and in short that’s essentially been much more proactive than in the past. That’s already led to some really significant results and improvements.

So, for example, in 2009–10 there were 63% of organisations lodged their annual returns on time. In the current year that figure was 95%. So really significant results that we’re seeing from that more active role that we’re playing as a regulator.

We’ve undertaken an unprecedented number of formal inquiries and investigations and by way of an example, there were four investigations into various parts of the Musicians' Union of Australia in particular around their compliance over a number of years with their reporting obligations under the Act. The outcome of those investigations was that findings were made and I anticipate that proceedings in the Federal Court will be brought early in the next year in relation to those findings.

Future Directions 

Future Directions is a change program initiated by the President. It’s about improving our efficiency and being innovative, it’s about improving our accountability and transparency, and it’s about playing our role in the national conversation around productivity and workplace engagement.

The first phase of the Future Directions program involved 25 initiatives that I’m really pleased that we’ve been able to complete all of those initiatives over the course of the year. It has been a significant piece of work and I’m incredibly proud of the staff for the work that they’ve undertaken in achieving all of the initiatives in Future Directions mark I, and we’ve recently launched Future Directions mark II which is a further 30 initiatives that we will be undertaking over the course of the next two years.

Budget challenges

We’re very aware of the ongoing budget challenges that we face along with most other organisations. We’re constantly finding ways to deliver quality services as efficiently as we can to ensure that we’re on a sustainable financial footing now and into the future. And that really involves being more innovative and finding ways to better use technology, eliminate where we can manual processes and rethink the way that we perform services, maintaining the quality of them. Those challenges will no doubt continue into the foreseeable future and we’re aware of the potential for further legislative change which may impact on the functions of the Commission and have an associated budgetary impact.

Delivering public value

Delivering public value is about making sure that we are providing services in accordance with our statutory functions that meet the diverse community’s needs.

We know that the trend toward more individual matters before the Commission is likely to continue for example, and so part of that delivering public value is about better meeting the needs of all users whether they be self-represented applicants, whether they be small business owners and operators or whether they be parties that are more familiar with the work of the Commission.

I’m incredibly proud of the way that staff across the organisation have contributed to the services that we continue to provide to the community and have responded really positively and working across the organisation to find ways to improve the work we do through the Future Directions program and the initiatives there, as well as the ongoing ways to find ways to work smarter.

There are some absolute challenges ahead for us. But I have every confidence that we do have the plans and the people in place to absolutely meet them all.

Narrator:

Small businesses are a major part of the Australian economy, employing nearly half of Australia’s private sector workforce. Many of these employees have their conditions set by modern awards. But many small business employers have a limited knowledge of workplace laws or the role and processes of the Fair Work Commission.

We’ve been making changes that help these important employers to better understand their rights and obligations and minimise disruption to their business when they interact with the Commission. We’re providing clear, easy to understand information about unfair dismissal claims, general protections applications and anti-bullying matters.

Our new website features a dedicated entry point for small businesses, where they can quickly find the information they need.

The virtual tour uses videos to explain how to respond to unfair dismissal applications, what happens during telephone conciliations and how to prepare for hearings and conferences. There’s also information about how to make a jurisdictional objection or seek free legal advice in jurisdictional matters.

We’re making our forms more simple and easier to complete.  And we are providing tools and checklists to make it easier for small business employers to represent themselves at the Commission.

Meanwhile, we’re delivering a range of information on the new anti-bullying jurisdiction, to help small businesses understand how the Commission deals with complaints about bullying and what constitutes bullying in the workplace.

We are working with the small business community through round-table events and other consultations to ensure this important sector can access the information it needs in easily understood forms.

Kathryn Green, Chief Information Officer:

The new website came about because there’s been a commitment now to people that are, maybe first-time users or unrepresented people that come before the Commission. So we were looking to find ways that we could provide a more easy to use, easy to find information and able to access it from any equipment they might have—either at their home or any mobile devices.

The old site was very much focused towards our practitioners—people that already knew quite a lot about the Fair Work Commission and the way it worked. The old website very much was based around the legal language that we used very commonly in those days. Now we’re looking at more plain English so that people can feel that they understand the sort of things that we need to get across to them.

We decided that one way to be able give a quick entry point to a number of key player groups in the community was to provide these audience pages or these audience sites. So that simply means an employer or an employee can come to our site and see a quick way to get straight to the information that we believe they most commonly need.

For people with an industrial relations background the new site did have the information that they had been used to before but in different places. What we provided was some information sessions that we ran in Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane and we especially invited people from an industrial relations background to come in and get to know the new site and to give them an understanding of where the most familiar information is now stored on the site.

There were some challenges along the way—there always are. But we had a lot of consultation and collaboration between the branches and between Members and staff.

We definitely have further plans for improving the website. We’re looking at ways to further develop the audience channels. To make sure that we’re providing the right information at the right time to these groups. We’re also looking at ways to implement newer technology in regards to interactive forms—we plan to create more smart forms so that people can access and put their information straight into our system. That will be beneficial for our clients as well as us internally in improving our efficiency.

We look back on our statistics and see an employer might go to a particular site and then be utilising these sorts of information sheets or forms and then other things maybe not used as much—so we are looking at refining that over time.

Extract from virtual tour video:

The Fair Work Commission is now in session—please be seated.

Di Lloyd, Manager Media and Communications:

The purpose of the virtual tour is really to give any parties that come before the Commission, but most likely unrepresented or infrequent users of the Commission, a real insight into what their experience will be like.

The tour focuses very much on the unfair dismissal area because that’s one of our highest volume of unrepresented and infrequent users.

Extract from virtual tour video:

You start your unfair dismissal claim by lodging an application form. This form contains all your contact and employment details and it sets out why you think your dismissal was unfair.

Di Lloyd, Manager Media and Communications:

It really gives unrepresented parties and infrequent users a step-by-step guide to the process for an unfair dismissal matter from the very start where you might be determining whether to put in an application or not, to putting in the application, responding to an application, going through the conciliation process and then if you do end up going to hearing, exactly what that process will be like.

Extract from virtual tour video:

Each side must prepare a case which includes written witness statements and an outline of submissions. And if the parties are unrepresented they must argue the case themselves.

The person at the front is the Member of the Commission. They are the person who will decide the case.

The Associate is the person sitting in front of the Member. They help the Member conduct the hearing. They swear in witnesses who will be giving evidence and they handle the paperwork and administration.

The large table in the room is called the bar table. This is where the employee and employer representatives sit while you may sit behind them. If you don’t have a representative you will sit at the bar table.

Di Lloyd, Manager Media and Communications:

It’s an extension of a lot of the work that we’ve been doing over the last 12 to 18 months, so through our Future Directions program we’ve been looking a lot about accessibility and accountability and access to justice.

And so one of the things that we’ve really been starting to look at is our language and how we explain what we do to parties. So this is just an extension of that where we’ve really gone in to a plain English format. We’ve tried to take a lot of the ‘legalese’ out as much as we possibly can and explain things as simply as we can.

The response has been very positive, so particularly for the conciliation section of the virtual tour. For parties to be able to have a look at that video before they go into that process and understand how to get the best out of that process has been extremely valuable.

Extract from virtual tour video:

A conciliation is not a legal process. It is more like a meeting that is conducted in a telephone conference call.

“Natalie, I’ll have the private session with you now if that’s okay with both of you—John, could you hang up. So Natalie, I’d like to ask you what you’d like to say and I’d like to ask you also what you hope to achieve out of today.”

“What I’d like to get is my job back but if that can’t happen I guess we can negotiate some compensation.”

Both sides need to come to the conciliation with a clear idea of the outcomes they want to achieve or are prepared to accept.

“John, I’m coming now to what Natalie is actually seeking out of the application to settle the matter.”

Di Lloyd, Manager Media and Communications:

Some of the challenge was really around taking very complex information and very complex legislation and turning it into a simple process and something that is easily understood by a broad audience.

But some of the other challenges with it was there’s just such an enormous amount of content that could go in to something like a virtual tour because no case is the same as it goes through the process. So for us it was determining what those key pieces of information were that parties may need to know about.

But also deciding on those key areas that would have most benefit, particularly around where parties are generally often making mistakes or are concerned or may be unsure so we’ve really tried to focus on those areas.

Extract from virtual tour video:

Now, let’s look at the jurisdiction rules we mentioned earlier in more detail. It’ll help you understand when employees can apply and when employers might have grounds for a jurisdictional objection.

First, employees have to be covered by the national unfair dismissal laws. All Commonwealth government employees are covered. But for other people coverage varies depending on your location and employer.

Di Lloyd, Manager Media and Communications:

It certainly isn’t complete—there will be a great deal that will be added over time. So as part of our Future Directions II program we will be looking to expand the virtual tour quite markedly. So we’ll be looking at including virtual tours of the areas of general protections, for example. We’ll also be looking at agreement making and potentially anti-bullying as well.

We’re very happy and proud of what we’ve done with the virtual tour. It’s quite a unique thing for us to have really opened up our processes so much in a video form. We’re very proud of how simplistic it is. So it really is making it easy for parties that aren’t used to coming to the Commission to really understand exactly what will happen.

Sound from hearing room:

“Silence please, all stand.”

Narrator:

Mock hearings throw open the doors of the Fair Work Commission to the community.

Sound from hearing room:

“The Fair Work Commission is in session. Please be seated.”

Narrator:

They allow the public, new practitioners and students to see how a hearing is conducted and help to make our processes more transparent and accessible.

Sound from hearing room:

“… my name is Harding and I seek permission to appear on behalf of the applicant, Doctor Terry Silver, and to address you seated. Good afternoon Commissioner. My name is Bingham, initials S.L., I seek permission to appear on behalf of the respondent in these proceedings. Thankyou, and I’d just remind parties…..”

Narrator:

For the past two years the mock hearings have illustrated processes relating to an unfair dismissal case.  These matters involve a high volume of unrepresented and infrequent users of the Commission.

Sound from hearing room:

“Thankyou, I will grant permission for representation of both parties. I do consider it ….”

Narrator:

The scenarios are meticulously prepared to mimic a real life case. A Member of the Commission conducts the hearing, while the merits of the cases are argued by leading workplace relations practitioners.  The mock hearings cover a lot of ground in a condensed time. Where in ‘real-life’ a matter could take a number of days to be heard, a mock hearing lasts a little over an hour.

Mock hearings are an important learning tool, with videos put on the Commission’s YouTube channel so they can be watched by anyone at any time. They help demystify the process for people who might be facing a real hearing but are unfamiliar with what will take place.

Sound from hearing room:

“… the general good of so many other people is probably more important at any given time ….”

Narrator:

And people get to see both ‘best practice’ and some common mistakes.

Sound from hearing room:

“I thank the parties for their submissions. Normally at this point, of course, the matter would adjourn because I would need to consider what was put to me and so what I thought we might do at this point is see what you think the outcome of this case should have been….”

Narrator:

There is a question and answer session at the end of each hearing.

Sound from hearing room:

“Do you have any questions of either counsel or myself in relation to the procedures of the Commission or how the case was run? ... An employer doing any performance management may put in a process to measure someone…”

Narrator:

The mock hearings began in Melbourne in 2013, with full houses and an overwhelmingly positive response.  In 2014 the program has been expanded across the country with mock hearings held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Hobart.

Sound from lecture:

“… and they were getting information out to the employees before we got the information – how dare they do this?”

Narrator:

The workplace relations lecture program is another important element of the Commission’s community engagement strategy.

Sound from lecture:

“They were saying to their members, ‘Have a look at these two organisations. These are companies with whom we have had good collaboration ….’”

Narrator:

A range of topics is addressed by local and international experts in workplace relations. The lectures are very popular with practitioners and students. Videos of the presentations are made available on the Commission’s YouTube channel as an ongoing resource

Sound from lecture:

“Where they’re not necessarily in the old industrial relations paradigm  ….”

Narrator:

From its beginnings in Melbourne in 2013 the popularity of the lecture series has seen it expanded across the country in 2014.

The increase in Modern Award minimum wages we have decided on is 3%. Weekly wages will be rounded to the nearest 10 cents. The national minimum wage is currently set at the minimum wage for the C14 classification. We have not been persuaded to depart from that relationship.

The national minimum wage will be $640.90 per week, or $16.87 per hour. The hourly rate has been calculated by dividing the weekly rate by 38 on the basis of the 38 hour week for a full time employee. This constitutes an increase of $18.70 per week to the weekly rate, or 50 cents per hour to the hourly rate.

The determinations and order giving effect to our decision will come into operation on 1 July 2014. The timetable for the annual wage review 2014–15 will be announced in the third quarter of this year.

We wish to express our appreciation to the parties who participated in the review for their contributions and to the staff of the Fair Work Commission for their assistance.

I'll now publish the decision summary and the decision and adjourn these proceedings.

Narrator:

It looks like any other staff meeting. But this gathering at a Sydney Water treatment plant reflects a revolution in industrial relations. The meeting is being jointly run by the Chief Executive of the business and the Secretary of the union which represents the staff.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

It’s a remarkable thing considering the past, because I don’t think that ever occurred before. But it’s something we’re doing more and more.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

There’s no way whatsoever that would have happened three years ago—no way. It would have been me addressing the members and they would have been passing resolutions probably condemning the Managing Director and probably in another few hours be out on strike.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

We’ve been rolling out a new strategy and structure discussions with the business and at each of those we’ve welcomed the union delegates to be there and people from the ASU.

Narrator:

This is a new way of operating for Sydney Water, which is Australia’s largest water utility. Just three years ago the organisation had a very different relationship with its workforce.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

It was war, what happened in the past was that we were making changes—it was announce and defend. It was—we would consult, but really we wouldn’t change our mind. It was described as that we were the circle of persistence ... seeing what we needed to do. And the unions were the circle of resistance. So they would slow us down as much as possible.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

We had been on strike probably four or five times, we were in the middle of a huge dispute, we were constantly before the Commission with disputes. I think we probably had about 12 running at that time. We had our own personal Commissioner I reckon. There was someone constantly on roster to deal with the disputes that would generate out of Sydney Water because the relationship was so bad.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

We were in the Fair Work Commission virtually every week and every issue we wanted to raise there was a stoush on and a dispute. And it was grinding the company back and we were facing real problems about our competitiveness in the market. I injected myself in the industrial relations. We were at war and there were signs on all trucks and a rolling series of strikes and I believed there was a better collaborative approach forward and so did Sally.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

Both myself and Kevin met and had a talk and said okay let’s give it a go—let’s give it a go at doing it differently. And so we both approached the Commission and asked them facilitate a process which we did go through and it took a year of good hard work to have a different relationship.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

With Deputy President Booth we got together and had a conversation and said there’s a leap of faith here but do you actually think we see a better way forward. And that’s what we did—and there was a lot of people said “this will never work”.

Narrator:

But it has worked. Peace has replaced war. 

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

We haven’t had one single dispute that we’ve had to notify to the Fair Work Commission—not one. And it’s now two and a half years and I think that’s a real achievement and it speaks for itself.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

From time to time we get into really difficult circumstances—there was one recently in IT that we had to deal with—and on occasions, it’s rare, we say to Deputy President Booth, “can you come in and just help facilitate a discussion between us?”

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

The way it works now it’s very different. Management will come to us with changes that they want to make and they’ll be open and honest about why they want to do it, what’s driving it, what they’re trying to achieve. And we’ll be open and honest about what our interests are and what we would like to see out of that.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

Very consultative, we’re very honest, it’s very transparent. If we’ve got major issues with any part of the business we sit down and we talk and we understand why we need to make some reform.

Narrator:

The Fair Work Commission was instrumental in bringing the parties together to forge the new relationship.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

The role of the Commissioner was absolutely essential to the changes. Deputy President Booth brought with her certain gravitas that couldn’t come from an independent facilitator so she brought all of all her skills to the table but not just that—she had the authority of being a Commissioner who was overseeing our relationships. It involved a lot of building of trust between us. It involved a lot of work by the Commission really for us to put aside—not ignore, but put aside—our previous grievances, in some circumstances would go back 50 years on both sides, to work from a position of okay, what do we agree on rather than what are we against.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

We agreed that we would have honest conversations with the different parts of the workforce. So in our civil area we went depot by depot and for the first time we said “Look, we’ve done benchmarking of how we’re going against what the typical costs are in the market and there’s a gap. And we want to tell you the absolute truth”. And this is not disputed—the unions agreed that there was a gap—and we said “Look, we’re not sure what the answers are but we want to work with you and we want to close this gap and I think a fair time would be three years”. And you can see the charts where we are two thirds of the way into the time frame—two years in—and we’ve got two-thirds of the savings we need and you can just see the change in the workforce. They’re actually very proud of the work that they’re doing and you can see morale improve.

Narrator:

One part of the process was a two day workshop convened by Deputy President Booth. Sydney Water management and the union came together to jointly discuss the challenges facing the business.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

We had to spend a whole day and a whole night and the whole next day together all facilitated by the Commission and they were really key turning points in the relationship.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

It was one of the honest two days that I’ve ever had.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

It was also good because our members and the managers—you know, we never really think about how the other side perceives us. And I think that was a bit of a shock for both of us.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

I think in the past the Fair Work Commission comes in when it’s the time of hopeless causes—when the parties are so far apart that you think “Gee, how are you going to solve this one?” and I know they do some magic there. But I do see the magic that they’re doing now is actually bringing the parties to prevent disputations. And boy in terms of safety, customer service, morale of people in the business it’s just a lot more powerful model.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

We basically now use the Commission as if I can call it like a guardian of the relationship. So we will touch base with the Commissioner now and again—you know, sometimes we’ll seek her opinion about how to go forward on issues.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

I think we will always want the Commission’s involvement at times of new EBAs, every three or four years, but I’m hoping that will be a light touch. I’m hoping that what we’re doing working with the Commission is that we’re learning more and more how to work these problems out ourselves. Staff told us that they want to work in a business that works as a team. And they wanted people to encourage one another to achieve their best. And they wanted to set goals and they wanted the business to be successful.

Sally McManus, Australian Services Union:

People don’t actually like going to work and fighting all the time—they don’t. And we knew it because, you know, you’re in touch with where your members are at, that they wanted to go to work and feel happy and proud about their job. They wanted to trust their managers actually and they do want to work on the common good for the people of Sydney.

Kevin Young, Sydney Water:

I’m proud of what the organisation has done. Because Sally and I kicked off a bit of a ‘dream of the future’ but it wouldn’t have been anything without both sides knuckling in and saying “Look, we’ll make it a reality”. And in the beginning, people as I said, said “This will never work”, but it has worked and it’s been highly successful—it’s been one of the greatest things I think we’ve done as a business.

Narrator:

The Catholic Education system in Victoria is a big, complex business. It employs nearly 24,000 people with an annual wages bill of around $1.5 billion. In the last bargaining over an enterprise agreement the negotiations stalled.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

We’d got to a point where neither party was prepared to give much ground and things weren’t progressing very well. We had the start of the next school year looming so both parties agreed that we needed someone else to step in and give us a hand so we could get an agreement settled.

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

We both came to the conclusion at the same time that going to Fair Work was going to be the way that we were going to best move forward and I have no doubt whatsoever that that’ll be an element of bargaining into the future for as long into the future as we have a Fair Work.

Narrator:

The Catholic Education system is an unusual industrial relations environment.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

There’s about 488 schools. But more importantly, there are about 320 separate employers that make up those 488 schools. The majority of them are Parish Priests so they are in charge of the primary school—they are the employer. The major issue is that there are so many of them.

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

The main thing that’ll go wrong is that one side or the other will become locked in to a position because of the large number of people—the big audience—that they’re working to. The worst part is that people end up, because there’s such a broad range of negotiations that have to go on to formulate people’s positions, they end up locked in to a position on a particular issue.

Narrator:

Teacher’s salaries follow those in the state sector. But salaries and conditions for the many support staff are negotiated during the enterprise bargaining.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

There were a number of issues in terms of, for example, the management of performance and conduct for employees, things around changes to personal leave—a number of matters that we were seeking. But then on the other side they were also seeking a number of matters which we weren’t prepared to concede on either. 

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

There were quite a few. The performance management processes in the agreement were a major sticking point. Some of the breaks and hours issues were really difficult matters to deal with. So there were some quite big issues.

Narrator:

The Fair Work Commission held a series of conferences with the parties over several months, chaired by Commissioner Bissett.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

It was a change in process. There are 70 clauses and eight appendices and 10 salary schedules so the Commissioner didn’t work through every one of those. But she did help us to work through the key issues which then gave us the way forward to us sitting down and resolving all those other matters.

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

She really just tested the parties on their positions. She was quite creative—she’s got a good knowledge of the industry—so she was quite creative and had good suggestions to make to us about how to try to break deadlocks and how to creatively think about our positions and always come back testing us about positions that were entrenched.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

This is where the Commissioner was very helpful in terms of we could each identify six key issues that we wanted to talk about then we would pick one. We would provide our viewpoint on that issue, the union would then provide their viewpoint, then the Commissioner would talk to us jointly—as I said, give us a bit of a reality check sometimes—and then also separate us so we could talk separately with her and then try and come together with what was common and what we could resolve that was still under dispute.

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

The other difficulty that we faced with that was sometimes we found the employer locked on to a particular draft of a clause and she was always creative about ways to move people—to make them a little more fluid about their negotiating position.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

Without Commissioner Bissett’s assistance—and she was pretty firm with both of us and wouldn’t take much nonsense—is that without her assistance we probably wouldn’t have been able to get to an agreement. If we hadn’t had that assistance we may well still be at the bargaining table.

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

I think it’s quite possible we’d still be there! There’s absolutely no chance that we would have got the outcome that we did get without the intervention of the Commission at that time, in that timeframe.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

Also, having her involved—and her generous commitment of time and things—it enabled the whole approval process to be very quick and very smooth in terms of we were able to lodge and within seven days we had the approval from the Commission which helped with implementation so that people in our schools got their back-pay, got their sign-on bonus.

Denis Matson, Independent Education Union:

I think it was a really good outcome. It was a difficult bargaining environment. All of the wages for the non- teaching staff, for the support staff, were at issue and we ended up with very good results in those areas— good increases for those people. And really good outcomes in some of the other areas as well. So things like performance management processes and breaks and arrangements of hours—really good outcomes.

John Jordan, Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Limited:

We have close to 24,000 employees covered by this agreement and we got a 99 per cent yes vote for our agreement so I suppose that gives some endorsement that the agreement is a fair agreement and the process was good.

Narrator:

Commissioner Hampton, Anti-bullying Panel Head:

The nature of our jurisdiction is preventative—we can’t make orders for compensation we don’t make orders declaring people guilty of any offence. What we do is we make orders to prevent further bullying conduct in workplaces. What its effectively designed to do is perhaps unlike many of those other options that still remain available is to deal directly with the alleged bullying behaviour before it actually escalates and leads to the conclusion of the employment relationship.

Narrator:

Workplace bullying can describe a range of behaviours.

Jennifer Anderson, Anti-bullying Team Manager:

Bullying under the Fair Work Act is repeated unreasonable behaviour. So its behaviour that has to have occurred more than once and it’s unreasonable. So it’s going to be something that’s unreasonable in the context of the workplace.

Commissioner Hampton, Anti-bullying Panel Head:

These are often emotional and difficult matters both for applicants and for individuals who are on the other end of the application so again they create challenges for the Commission and we’ve tried to both provide training and processes deal with all of that.

Jennifer Anderson, Anti-bullying Team Manager:

We didn’t really know what to expect so that has been the first hurdle to get over is settling in to what the jurisdiction is actually about. What we’ve found is that we’ve received pretty consistent numbers of applications each month.

The case management team deals with an application as soon as it’s been lodged up until it’s allocated to either a staff mediator or a member of the Commission to deal with the application.

We contact the applicant in the matter—so the worker who has lodged their application—and talk to them about the application that they’ve made; raise any issues of concern if they have indicated that there is some sort of imminent risk at the workplace or if they’ve indicated that they’ve got concerns around self-harm or other serious issues. We have that initial discussion with the applicant and then we have that same conversation with their employer. We usually do that on the same day as the application has been lodged so we deal with them very quickly.

Commissioner Hampton, Anti-bullying Panel Head:

What will then happen is the matter will be consolidated in a report—that is the staff of the Commission will make a report—and the person acting as the panel head will then make a decision as to how, when and where the application will be progressed by the Commission.

Unlike the unfair dismissal jurisdiction not all matters are subject to conciliation or mediation. We use conciliation or mediation when it’s appropriate and that is a decision that’s made having regard to the nature and circumstances of the parties, the nature of the alleged bullying conduct and any response that’s been provided to that.

The earlier they are resolved, the more informally they are resolved the more there is a resolution which if not initiated in the workplace but involves the direct workplace participants the more likely it is that there will be a proper resolution which ensures an ongoing employment or contractual relationship.

Narrator:

The new jurisdiction raised a number of challenges for the Commission.

Commissioner Hampton, Anti-bullying Panel Head:

Because we are dealing with multiple parties in an application they are often unrepresented, so in that context the Commission has to establish its processes and its approaches around the fact that unlike most matters the Commission deals with there are not two parties, there can be many parties. In fact, some applications name multiple individuals so you might have say up to a dozen in a more extreme case.

Jennifer Anderson, Anti-bullying Team Manager:

We put a lot of effort into the setting up an establishment process. So making sure that we were prepared was a really critical part of then how the team has been able to proceed since the commencement of the jurisdiction.

Commissioner Hampton, Anti-bullying Panel Head:

We were also assisted in that regard by the consultation we undertook with the parties or representatives of the major parties in particular the trade union movement and the employer community and a number of psychologists and other professionals operating in this area.

Jennifer Anderson, Anti-bullying Team Manager:

Because we are often dealing with parties on both sides who can be in fairly fraught situations—we can be dealing with people who are often distressed. So the personal contact that we have and the processes that we go through whilst they are labour intensive—are also critical to the success of the process so far.