New data released by the Attorney-General’s department shows the number of union enterprise agreements has continued to decline.

The Trends in Federal Enterprise Bargaining Report highlighted the number of union agreements approved in the September quarter was 866, dropping 21 per cent in comparison to the 1107 agreements approved in the previous quarter.

The number of non-union agreements approved increased by the second biggest margin in three years to 383.

It means 31 per cent of all new agreements are negotiated directly with the workforce.

Current union agreements fell from 7461 to 7068, and the number of workers covered declined by 25000 to 2.039 million. Current non-union agreements covered 121,000 workers.

The number of current agreements fell by 461 to 10,877 for the September quarter of 2019.

The total number of workers covered dropped by 29,300 to 2.16 million.

AREEA calls for changes 

AREEA continues encouraging the Federal Government to also pursue improvements to the nation’s industrial relations laws, including cutting red tape and inefficiencies in enterprise agreement making (see related article here).

“A number of minor changes to the processes for making agreements and having them approved in the Fair Work Commission would significantly improve the system for both employers and employees,” Mr Knott said.

“Further, allowing enterprise agreements to run the length of major project construction would have a huge positive impact on investor certainty and industrial stability in our country.