Fair Work Commission quashes sham enterprise agreement

The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission ('FWC') has quashed the approval of Mantle Group Hospitality's Hot Wok Food Makers Workplace Agreement 2021 ('the Hot Wok Agreement'). In finding that the agreement was incapable of having been 'genuinely agreed to', the Full Bench noted the employer's "deliberate manipulation of the statutory process of making enterprise agreements", with the General Manager of the FWC referring Mantle Group's HR Manager to the Australian Federal Police for potential criminal prosecution.

You can read the full decision of United Workers' Union v Hot Wok Food Makers Pty Ltd [2023] FWCFB 4 here.

Background

The Hot Wok Agreement won the approval of the FWC's then Deputy President Amanda Mansini in 2021. Soon after, Mantle Group began to move workers from the zombie deal Staff Services Pty Ltd Certified Agreement ('Staff Services Agreement'), a non-union agreement form the early 2000s that had allowed Mantle Group to avoid paying