Adding employers and their employees to a single interest employer agreement

Once a single interest employer agreement is made, it may be varied to cover additional employers and their employees.

A variation may be made:

• jointly by employers and their employees, or
• by a union, if a majority of employees to be covered want to be covered by the agreement.

The variation has no effect unless it is approved by us.

If an application is made, employers and employee organisations covered by the agreement will always have an opportunity to express their views.

There is a different process to remove employers and employees from multi-enterprise agreements.

Employers and their employees can agree to vary a single interest employer agreement to be included in the agreement’s coverage. This is a joint variation.

To indicate agreement, the employer must hold a vote for the affected employees. A majority must genuinely agree to the variation.

The variation is made when a majority of affected employees vote to approve it.

The employer must then apply to us for approval of the variation. The employer has 14 days after voting closes to apply.

We must approve a variation of a single interest employer agreement if:

• no other agreements cover or will cover the affected employees, and
• the employers are franchisee or share common interests.

If employers named in the application are not franchisees, we must also be satisfied that the employers share reasonably comparable business activities.

Read more about common interests on our Single interest employer agreements page.

A union covered by a single interest employer agreement can apply to vary the agreement to cover additional employers and their employees.

In addition to the requirements we must consider for joint variations, if the application was made by a union we must also be satisfied that:

• the new employer has at least 20 employees
• a majority of the affected employees want to be covered by the agreement.

If the application is made by a union and the employer employs at least 50 employees at the time of application, we will presume that some of the approval requirements have been met unless proven otherwise.

Tip: In calculating the number of employees, all employees of the employer and of the employer’s associated entities are to be counted. This includes regular casual employees, but does not include other casuals.

We may refuse to approve an application if:

• the new employer and their employees are bargaining in good faith for a proposed enterprise agreement that will cover the new proposed employees or substantially the same group of employees, and
• the new employer and their employees have a history of effectively bargaining in relation to one or more enterprise agreement, and
• less than 9 months have passed since the most recent agreement expired.

We must not approve the variation if:

• as a result of the variation, the agreement would cover employees in general building and construction work, or
• the agreement is a greenfields agreement that covers employees in general building and construction work.

We cannot approve the variation if the employer is specified in a supported bargaining authorisation in relation to any of the affected employees.

Use the following forms to apply to vary the single interest employer bargaining agreement to add employers and their employees.

Follow the instructions on each form. The form will explain how to lodge or submit it to us.

A single interest employer agreement is a type of multi-enterprise agreement. You can find more information on our Change an agreement page.

For a legal definition of what we must consider when approving or refusing an application to vary a single interest employer agreement to add an employer and their employees, see section 216DC of the Fair Work Act 2009.