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hallelujah twelves and welcome to this video on work place relations this is the second of our videos on workplace relations and in this video we will be looking at awards enterprise agreements individual employment contracts and the role of the Fair Work Commission there are four things that you need to do while you're watching this video first take the very best Cornell notes that you can second use the pause and rewind functions use the pause function if you need to stop this video to take notes use the rewind function if you need to go back over any information contained in this video the third thing that you need to do is to have your vocabulary sheets open in front of you so that you can include in your vocabulary sheets the definitions of key terms and of any other words that you may be unfamiliar with the fourth and final thing that you need to do is to have your summary books open in front of you in particular you will need to include in there your summary books a summary of the role of the Fair Work Commission once you've finished watching this video please read the pages from the textbook referred to on this slide and if you find any additional information that you think is useful please supplement your Cornell notes with that information on this slide I've set out the two learning intentions for this video make sure that you write these learning intentions down in your Cornell notes the first learning intention is that you need to be able to explain awards and agreements as methods of determining wages and conditions of work the second learning intention is that you need to be able to explain the role of the Fair Work Commission well let's get started in workplace relations is about the relationship between employers and employees in the workplace in particular this relationship involves firstly establishing the wages and conditions of employment of employees and secondly settling workplace disputes in this video we will be focusing on that aspect of workplace relations which involves establishing the wages and conditions of employment of employees as we've seen in the previous video the aim or purpose of workplace relations is to achieve the best possible working relationship between managers and employees this is important because positive workplace relations that is a good working relationship between managers and employees increases employee motivation and as we know employees who are motivated will work harder for the business and this will result in an increase in the productivity performance and profitability of the business this leads us to the question of how the wages and conditions of employment of employees are established the Fair Work Act 2009 is a very important piece of legislation which has been passed by the Commonwealth Parliament and which regulates the employment terms and conditions of most employees in Australia this act recognizes that there are three types of arrangements under which an employee can be employed these are under an award under an enterprise agreement or under an individual employment contract with the employees employer however irrespective of whether an employee is employed under an award under an enterprise agreement or under an individual employment contract that employee is entitled to certain minimum employment conditions these minimum employment conditions are set out in the National Employment Standards we're now going to look at each of the National Employment Standards Awards enterprise agreements and individual employment contracts in a bit more detail let's start off by looking at the National Employment Standards the National Employment Standards which are contained in the Fair Work Act 2009 sent out 10 minimum employment entitlements for all employees these 10 minimum employment entitlements for safety net this is because an award enterprise agreement or individual employment contract can set out more favorable entitlements for employees than those set out in the National Employment Standards but an employee cannot be employed on terms and conditions that are less favorable there those set out in at the National Employment Standards on this slide I've set out some of the more important minimum employment entitlements that employees have under the National Employment Standards first full-time employees can only be required to work a maximum of 38 hours per week plus reasonable additional hours what is reasonable depends upon the circumstances so for example an employee in the retail trade may be required to work additional hours over particularly busy periods and such as the Christmas period second all employees are entitled to twelve months unpaid parental leave that is where the employee or the employees partner gives birth to a baby then the employee is entitled to take up to 12 months leave from work but that leave is unpaid third full-time employees are entitled to four weeks paid and you will leave per year part-time employees are also entitled to annual leave but their annual leave entitlement is prorated this means that for example if a part-time employee works half the hours of a full-time employee then that part-time employee is entitled to two weeks paid annual leave per year for full-time employees are entitled to ten days paid sick leave per year again for part-time employees their entitlement to sick leave is prorated so a part-time employee who works half the hours of a full-time employee would be entitled to five days paid sick leave per year fifth all employees are entitled to community service leave typically this is unpaid for example as where an employee takes leave from work to engage in a voluntary emergency activities such as firefighting however where leave is taken so that the employee can serve on a jury then that leave is paid that is the employee is paid as if they were still at work sixth is long service leave long service leave is an entitlement that an employee has to take an extended period of work after having been with their employer for a long time more specifically employees who have been employed with an employer for 15 years will generally be entitled to take 3 months paid leave off 7th all employees are entitled to be paid for public holidays even though they will not necessarily be working on those public holidays and finally if an employees job is made redundant that is if the employee is retrenched then the employee is entitled to up to 5 weeks notice of the termination of their employment and up to 16 weeks severance pay or redundancy pay the actual amount of notice and the actual amount of severance pay depends upon how long the employee has been employed with their employer for so these are eight very important minimum employment entitlements that employees have now you'll note that the National Employment Standards do not set minimum wages for employees instead these minimum wages are determined by awards or Enterprise agreements as we'll see now an award is a set of legally binding minimum requirements for wages and employment conditions that apply to a specific industry look down the left-hand side of your vocabulary sheets find the term award and write this definition in there once you've done that please highlight the words in red bold italicized type and if you're ever required to define or describe an award remember to include these highlighted words in your definition or description so for example the broadcasting recorded entertainment and cinemas award covers employees who are involved in broadcasting distributing or showing films and television programs the fast-food industry award covers employees in the fast-food industry and the hearing beauty industry award covers employees in the hairdressing and beauty industry in fact there are 122 awards that apply in Australia the award for a particular industry will set out the minimum wages that are payable to employees in that industry these minimum wages are a safety net because while an employer can pay their employees in the industry more than the minimum wages they cannot pay those employees less than these minimum wages in addition the award for a particular industry will set out other employment conditions for employees in that industry these conditions might relate to matters such as overtime and penalty rates allowances for example meal breaks and annual and holiday leave entitlements finally the award for an industry will set out procedures for the resolution of grievances that is for the resolution of disputes between an employee and their employer as well as procedures for the termination of the employment of employees in the pet industry now as I've said the employment entitlements under an award must be equal to or better than the minimum employment entitlements under the National Employment Standards most of the 122 awards were initially made by the government in 2010 when the Fair Work Act came into operation however in ance with the Fair Work Act these awards are reviewed every four years by the Fair Work Commission the Fair Work Commission is the Commonwealth Government workplace relations regulator and we'll be looking at the role of the Fair Work Commission in more detail in a moment however for present purposes it's sufficient to understand that every four years the Fair Work Commission will review these awards and can make changes to them now the terms and conditions of employment of employees in an industry are as I've said determined by the award that applies to that industry unless that employee is instead covered by an enterprise agreement and will now look at enterprise agreements an enterprise agreement sometimes also called a collective agreement is an agreement that is made between an employer and its employees typically represented by the Union about wages and employment conditions that apply at a specific workplace an enterprise agreement is made through the process of collective bargaining which we looked at in the last video look down the left-hand side of your vocabulary sheet find the term Enterprise Agreement and write this definition in there once you've done that please highlight the words in red bold italics type and if you're ever required to define or describe an enterprise agreement then make sure that you include these highlighted words in your definition or description there are thousands of enterprise agreements that apply to individual workplaces across Australia as I've said we're an enterprise agreement applies to employees in a workplace then the enterprise agreement applies instead of the award that would otherwise cover employees in the bet industry however there are two important safeguards that apply in relation to enterprise agreements firstly the employee entitlements under any enterprise agreement must be equal to or better than the minimum employment entitlements under the National Employment Standards secondly the wages that are payable under an enterprise agreement must not be below the minimum wages there specified in the award that covers employees in that the relevant industry you'll remember that I referred to the minimum wage is specified in an award as a safety net and that's because an employer cannot pay their employees in a particular industry wages that are below the minimum wage is specified in the applicable award for an enterprise agreement to come into operation it must be approved firstly by the majority of employees who are going to be covered by the enterprise agreement and secondly by the Fair Work Commission as I've said we'll be looking at the role of the Fair Work Commission in a bit more detail later on however for present purposes it's sufficient note that one of the roles of the Fair Work Commission is to approve enterprise agreements the Fair Work Commission will only approve an enterprise agreement if it's satisfied that each employee who is covered by the enterprise agreement will be better off overall than under the award that would apply to that employee in the absence of the enterprise agreement so for example suppose that an award provides for employees in a particular industry to be entitled to five weeks and you will leave it may well be that in the process of negotiating and Enterprise Agreement the employees and the employer agree that the employees will only have four weeks and you will leave but that they will receive higher pay in this case even though the employees and you'll leave entitlements under the enterprise agreement are less then the employees and you'll leave entitlements under the award their pay is better than the pay that would be paid to them under the award if overall this means that the employees are better off that is if over all the employees come out on top because their increase in pay is a greater than the value of the week worth of annual leave that they have for gone in the Fair Work Commission we'll approve that the Enterprise Agreement because the employees are under the enterprise agreement are better off overall then under the relevant award this slide sets out a few more important points about enterprise agreements first the maximum period for an enterprise agreement is four years when the enterprise agreement comes to an end that is terminates then unless the employer and employees agree a new Enterprise Agreement the terms and conditions of employment for the employees will be as set out in the award that applies to the industry in which the employees work second an enterprise agreement must include a dispute settlement procedure that is a procedure for settling disputes between the employer and their employees the third point relates to industrial action employees are permitted to take industrial action for example to strike after an enterprise agreement has terminated and before a new enterprise agreement is entered into put another way employees are permitted to take industrial action as part of negotiating a new enterprise agreement such industrial action is called protected action on the other hand employees are generally prohibited from taking industrial action such as striking during the term of an enterprise agreement such industrial action is called unprotected action because if employees do take industrial action during the term of an enterprise agreement then the employer may take legal action against them and this legal action may result in the employees being ordered to return to work or in the employees having to pay compensation to the employer for going on strike this then brings us to individual employment contracts an individual employment contract is a contract between an employer and an individual employee about wages and employment conditions for that employee look down the left-hand side of your vocabulary sheets find the term individual employment contract and write this definition in there once you've done that please highlight the words in red bold italics and if you're ever required to define or describe an individual employment contract include the highlighted words in your definition or description where an employee enters into an individual employment contract with their employer then the award and any Enterprise Agreement does not apply to that employee instead the terms and conditions for that employee are as set out in their individual employment contract however there are two important safeguards that apply in relation to individual employment contracts first the employee entitlements under the individual employment contract must be equal to or better than the minimum employment entitlements under the National Employment Standards and second the wages and employee entitlements that the employee has under their individual employment contract must be equal to or better than those specified in the award that applies to the industry in which the employee works or in any enterprise agreement that applies to other employees at the workplace where the employee works now there are some employees who are not covered by an award or by an enterprise agreement and therefore they don't have the benefit of a minimum wage being sent by an award or an enterprise agreement that applies to them in such a case those employees are entitled to be paid the national minimum wage the national minimum wage is a minimum wage that is set every year by the Fair Work Commission for the 2018-19 financial year the national minimum wage has been set at 18.9 T 3 cents per hour for full-time and part-time adult employees and at twenty three dollars and sixty six cents per hour for casual at all employees you'll recall that in our last video we looked at the roles of trade unions the human resources department and employer associations in workplace relations our second learning intention requires that you should be able to explain the role of the Fair Work Commission in the next few slides we will look at the role of the Fair Work Commission as well as the role of the government the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work division of the federal court and Federal Circuit Court in workplace relations slide sets out the five roles of the Fair Work Commission you need to understand and make sure that you can explain each of these roles in some detail because the study design requires that you should be able to explain the role of the Fair Work Commission ingly you need to include a summary of each of these roles in your summary books the first three roles of the Fair Work Commission listed on this slide are part of the role of the Fair Work Commission in setting wages and employment conditions the last two roles of the Fair Work Commission set out on this slide are part of the role of the Fair Work Commission in resolving disputes it's very important that you know which of these five roles relates to the Fair Work Commission setting wages and employment conditions and which of the five roles relate to the Fair Work Commission resolving disputes this is because an exam or SEC question might ask you to explain the role of the Fair Work Commission in either setting wages and employment conditions or in resolving disputes and in that circumstance you need to make sure that the roles that you described relates to either setting wages and deployment conditions or resolving disputes as appropriate well let's work through these roles in a little bit more detail we've already touched on the first three roles in this video the first role of the Fair Work Commission is to create and maintain a safety net of minimum wages and working conditions consisting of awards the Fair Work Commission reviews each award every four years at this review employers employer associations employees and trade unions make submissions for changes to the award the Fair Work Commission decides the changes that are to be made the effect of these awards is to create a safety net of minimum wages and working conditions that apply to employees in different industries by regularly reviewing the awards the Fair Work Commission maintains this safety net the second role of the Fair Work Commission is to ensure that the enterprise bargaining process is fair as we've seen enterprise agreements are negotiated between an employer and their employees who are generally represented by their trade union this is the process known as collective bargaining the Fair Work Commission ensures that this process is fair because the Fair Work Commission must only approve an enterprise agreement if the Commission is satisfied that each employee who is to be covered by the enterprise agreement will be better off overall than under the relevant award this is called the better off overall test or boot be double OT test the third and final role of the Fair Work Commission in setting wages and employment conditions is the role that the Fair Work Commission plays in determining the national minimum wage every year the Fair Work Commission determines the national minimum wage as I've previously said this is currently 18 . 93 cents per hour for full-time and part-time adult employees employees who are not covered by an award or enterprise agreement are entitled to be paid the national minimum wage now we come to the two roles of the Fair Work Commission which relate to its role resolving disputes we'll be looking at each of these roles in more detail in a subsequent video the first of these roles is that the Fair Work Commission assists in resolving workplace disputes in this regard the Commission can make legally binding decisions relating to workplace relations so if an employer and its employees are negotiating and enterprise agreements but cannot reach agreement on the enterprise agreement then the Fair Work Commission may require that the dispute is mediated by an independent party that independent party mate might be appointed by the Fair Work Commission or might be agreed to by the parties in a mediation the employer and the trade union are each given a reasonable opportunity to put their case and to reach an agreement if the employer and the trade unions still cannot agree then the Fair Work Commission can ciliates the dispute in a conciliation the Fair Work Commission tries to help the parties reach an agreement for example by proposing solutions to the disagreement if the employer and the trade union still cannot agree then the Fair Work Commission may arbitrate the dispute in an arbitration the Fair Work Commission makes a legally binding decision to resolve the dispute about the enterprise agreement we'll be looking at mediation conciliation and arbitration in more detail in the next video the fifth and final role of the Fair Work Commission which is relevant to its role in resolving disputes is that the Fair Work Commission determines unfair dismissal claims an employee can apply to the Fair Work Commission where they think that their dismissal is unfair that is very disheartened or unreasonable if the Fair Work Commission decides that the dismissal is indeed unfair then it can order the employer to either reinstate the employee or to pay compensation to the employee we'll finish up this video by looking very briefly at the roles of the government the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work division of the federal court and the federal circuit court in workplace relations you don't have to know about the roles of these bodies in any great detail but you should be aware of it the existence of these bodies and in general terms what they're responsible for turning first of all to the government workplace relations can have a serious impact on the Australian economy and the general public ingly one very important role of government is to introduce laws that regulate workplace relations for example we have laws about the terms and conditions on which employees can be employed we have laws about industrial action that is when employees can take strike action and when they can't we have laws about occupational health and safety and finally we have laws about equal opportunities and anti discrimination in the workplace as I've mentioned before the key law which regulates the terms and conditions of employment in Australia is the Fair Work Act 2009 this is an act or law that was passed by the Commonwealth Parliament the Fair Work Ombudsman is an independent statutory agency which acts as the workplace relations policeman the Fair Work Ombudsman has four important roles first it investigates complaints and suspected breaches offered the Fair Work Act related legislation Awards and enterprise agreements second the Fair Work Ombudsman seeks to resolve complaints by employees against their employer it can't require employees and employers to resolve their dispute but it can help them to come to some sort of agreed resolution thirdly the Fair Work Ombudsman takes court action to enforce the Fair Work Act related legislation Awards and enterprise agreements and finally the Fair Work Ombudsman provides assistance and education to both employers and employees about the entitlements of employees regarding pay and workplace conditions finally we have the Fair Work division of the federal court and of the Federal Circuit Court the role of these courts is to determine whether there have been breaches of the Fair Work Act related legislation awards or Enterprise agreements so for example it may be that the Fair Work Ombudsman brings a case to the court in which it alleges that an employer has breached the Fair Work Act the role of the court is then to determine whether in fact the employer has breached the Fair Work Act where the court decides that there has been a breach of the Fair Work Act related legislation or an award or an enterprise agreement then it may make an order to remedy that breach this order which will typically be made against an employer may take the form of an order that the employer pays a fine or that the employer reimburses any of its employees who it has underpaid or that the employer reinstate an employee who it has dismissed well that brings us to the end of this video as a result of watching this video and taking notes on it you should now be able to do two things first you should be able to explain awards and agreements as methods of determining wages and conditions of work and second you should be able to explain that the role of the Fair Work Commission please make sure that you read at the pages from the textbook referred to on the first slide and if you find any additional information that you think is useful then supplement your Cornell notes with that information thank you for your attention