The Federal Court's dismissal today of an appeal by three coal mining businesses against a Fair Work Commission ruling on multi-employer bargaining sets a dangerous precedent that will undermine enterprise bargaining and jeopardise much-needed investment across the mining industry.
The dismissal of the appeal remains a deeply disappointing outcome that leaves the door wide open to unions exploiting this precedent.
In its August 2023 decision, the Commission found that the 2022 amendments to the Fair Work Act meant competing businesses mining the same commodity in the same state shared a sufficient 'common interest' to satisfy the legal test for forcing them into multi-employer bargaining.
The MCA intervened in the initial Commission proceeding to argue that it was inappropriate for rival mining companies, with vastly different operations and workforce management arrangements, to be compelled into bargaining against their will.
Although the union that initiated the process has since abandoned bargaining after no agreement could be reached on anything, the "same commodity-same state" precedent has now been upheld by the Court. This opens the door for similar actions to be taken against other mining businesses across the country.
The MCA maintains that multi-employer bargaining is fundamentally unsuited to the mining industry. It is unrealistic to believe that competing businesses with differing operations and priorities will ever be able to agree to uniform terms and conditions, let alone ones that provide superior benefits to the alternatives.
