As a guide the matters applicants might cover to support their application include:
History of bargaining
- Details of current or previous awards and agreements, or other industrial instruments covering the employers
- previous bargaining the employers have engaged in, either multi- or single-employer
- whether previous or current laws governing the bargaining process have met the needs of the employers and their employees.
Common interests
- Evidence of common interests e.g. type of work, workforce challenges
- how these common interests give rise to a need for bargaining together e.g. to address workforce challenges like staff retention or productivity.
Common regulation system
- Evidence of common legislation, policy and administrative arrangements that apply specifically to the employers, including employment arrangements and government reporting arrangements.
Appropriateness of separate enterprise agreements
- Address benefits and / or problems with bargaining separately versus together e.g. relating to extent of workplace relations expertise, efficiency of the bargaining process, capacity to deal with common issues.
Collaborative operations
- Evidence of the employers operating collaboratively e.g. use of shared infrastructure, resources or systems, shared employment arrangements or administration.
Government funding
- Details of government funding sources for each employer and the nature of that funding e.g. annual budget allocations, tied or untied, multi-year agreements.
Other matters
- For example, evidence the employers have consented to the application, views of other parties such as employees, unions or funding agencies, consideration of the implications of the potential for protected industrial action (which would otherwise not be available in bargaining involving two or more employers).
In preparing the application, applicants should also take into account the objects of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Section 3) and the objects relating to enterprise agreements (Section 171).