Australian Workplace Agreement - Coverage

Coverage

AWAs had achieved coverage of about 2.4% of the workforce as of May 2004. Mining companies have pushed the agreements with some success, offering substantial increases in pay to workers who chose to sign an AWA.

According to OEA statistics, as of 31 December 2004, 1,410,900 persons were covered under Union Certified Agreements, 168,500 were covered under non-union Certified Agreements, and Australian Workplace Agreements had risen to 421,800, or over 21%. By 31 December 2005 this had risen to 1,618,200 under Union Certified Agreements, 185,300 under non-union Certified Agreements, and 538,200 Australian Workplace Agreements. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures published in March 2005 show that hourly wages of workers on AWAs were two percent lower than the hourly wages of workers on registered collective agreements, mostly negotiated by unions. For women, AWAs paid 11% less per hour than collective agreements.

"The most common methods of setting pay for all employees were registered collective agreement (38.3%), unregistered individual arrangement (31.2%) and award only (20.0%). Unregistered collective agreement (2.6%) and registered individual agreement (2.4%) were the least common methods of setting pay. The remaining 5.4% of employees were working proprietors of incorporated businesses."

In the federal public service the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations reported that as of 31 December 2004, out of 124,500 public and parliamentary service permanent staff there were 11,085 AWAs (covering 1928 Senior Executive Service (SES), where AWAs are compulsory, and 9,157 other employees). The rest of the permanent staff were covered, as at 30 March 2005, by 101 certified agreements, of which 70 were union enterprise agreements and 31 non-union enterprise agreements.

According to a report in The Australian newspaper in March 2007, about five per cent of the total workforce is employed on AWAs, with about 32 per cent of miners employed on AWAs, but this figure is much higher in Western Australia where up to 52 per cent are on AWAs. Rio Tinto pioneered individual employment contacts under common law in the 1980s in Western Australia with productivity improvements of between 20 and 35 per cent, according to Rio Tinto managing director Charlie Lenegan.