Agreements & Awards

Workplace agreements are documents made under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Commonwealth) containing terms and conditions of employment negotiated through the enterprise bargaining process and applying to a particular group of employees.

Workplace agreement negotiations in the NT Public Sector (NTPS) take place between the Commissioner for Public Employment (CPE), NTPS agencies and employees’ bargaining representatives (usually unions or other associations representing employees).  Agreements made under the Fair Work Act are known as “Enterprise Agreements”.  Some current NTPS workplace agreements were made under the previous Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Commonwealth) and are known as “Union Collective Agreements”.

The workplace agreement negotiation process generally involves the following:

• The representative union consults with its members about the sort of changes they would like to see to their terms and conditions of employment.
• The union then formulates its claim for presentation to the CPE. The claim is basically a list of the members’ desired changes.
• Similarly, the CPE and agencies consider changes they would like to see occur and may present these for consideration by employees and the unions.
• Non-union members are able to provide their views through their agency or via the feedback page on this website.
• The parties then set about negotiating the issues raised with a view to finalising an agreement. The negotiation process can take some time as the union consults further with its members, and the agencies and CPE consider the union claims.
  

Once negotiations have concluded, the parties draft a document setting out the matters agreed upon. Employees are then given a copy of the document and have the opportunity to vote in favour of it. If a majority of employees who participate in the vote approve the terms, the document is lodged with Fair Work Australia for approval.  The Enterprise Agreement will come into effect seven days after approval from Fair Work Australia.

Detailed information on current workplace agreement negotiations is available on the Workplace Agreement Negotiations website.