Single-enterprise agreement

 

 

 

 

Introduction

See Fair Work Act 2009 s.172(2)

An employer, or two or more employers that are single interest employers, may make an enterprise agreement with the employees who are employed at the time the agreement is made and who will be covered by the agreement.

Single interest employers

Two or more employers are single interest employers if the employers are:

  • engaged in a joint venture or common enterprise, or
  • related bodies corporate, or
  • specified in a single interest employer authorisation that is in operation in relation to the proposed enterprise agreement concerned.[1]

A joint venture is an association of persons for particular trading, commercial, mining, or other financial undertakings or endeavours with a view to mutual profit. Each participant usually, but not necessarily, contributes money, property or skill.[2]

A common enterprise was defined by Mason J in Australian Softwood Forests Pty Ltd v Attorney-General (NSW); Ex rel Corporate Affairs Commission:[3]

'An enterprise may be described as common if it consists of two or more closely connected operations on the footing that one part is to be carried out by A and the other by B, each deriving a separate profit from what he does, even though there is no pooling or sharing of receipts of profits. It will be enough that the two operations constituting the enterprise contribute to the overall purpose that unites them. There is then an enterprise common to both participants and, accordingly, a common enterprise.'

The term body corporate covers any artificial legal entity having a separate legal personality. These entities have perpetual succession; they also have the power to act, hold property, enter into legal contracts and sue and be sued in their own name.

Related bodies corporate refers to all bodies in the situation where one is a holding company of another body corporate, or a subsidiary of another body corporate, or a subsidiary of a holding company of another body corporate.[4]

Related information

References

[1] Fair Work Act s.172(5).

[2]Butterworths Australian Legal Dictionary, 1997, 645.

[4]Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s.50.

Updated time

Last updated

24 May 2019

 

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