The Bargaining Representative You Didn’t Know You Had…

The Federal Court has determined that a bargaining representative can be appointed by an employer to bargain for agreements under the Fair Work Act without any formal appointment documents being drawn up. Under the Act, an appointment must be "in writing", including the date of the appointment. The Court has determined that so long as the date of the appointment can be discerned from the document, the appointment does not need to have any particular formality. It must also be in a form that can (on request) be given to an employee's bargaining representative.

In Jones –v– QTAC (No 2) [2010] FCA 399 (29 April 2010), Justice Collier determined that the Chief Executive Officer (Ms Jones) of the employer (QTAC) had been appointed as a bargaining representative for enterprise bargaining negotiations. QTAC argued that it had not made the appointment at all, but the Court found appointment was made by a combination of Board minutes and a letter to the employee bargaining