Application for termination of the Australian Manav Group Pty Ltd 2021 EBA.

[1] The employer, Australian Manav Group Pty Ltd T/A AMG Security, has applied to terminate the Australian Manav Group Pty Ltd 2021 EBA (Agreement). The application was made under s 222 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the Act), which provides for termination of an enterprise agreement by agreement between the employer and employees. The Agreement is a single-enterprise agreement.

[2] The application was supported by a 'Form F24A - declaration in support of termination of an enterprise agreement', made by a director for the employer. Upon being allocated to me, I directed the employer to serve upon its employees an email from chambers setting out various matters about the application, the requirement that employees have been given a reasonable opportunity to decide whether to terminate the Agreement, whether there are any reasonable grounds for believing that the employees have not agreed to the termination, and whether the termination of the Agreement is appropriate taking into account the views of any affected employee. The employer was required to serve that email on its relevant employees (which it did) and asked those employees to contact chambers if they wished to be heard. No employee did so.

[3] By s 219 of the Act, an employer and its employees may "jointly agree" to terminate an enterprise agreement. A termination of an enterprise agreement by joint agreement has no effect unless approved by the Commission: s 219(2).

[4] Section 220(1) provides that an employer may request employees to approve a proposed termination of an agreement by voting for it. By s 220(2), before making a request, an employer must:

"(a) take all reasonable steps to notify the employees of the following:

(i) the time and place at which the vote will occur;

(b) give the employees a reasonable opportunity to decide whether they want to approve the proposed termination."

[5] By s 221(1), a termination is "agreed to" when a majority of the employees who cast a vote to approve the termination.

[6] Sections 222 - 224 set out various requirements that must be met for approval of the termination, as well as when any termination comes into operation. Sections 223 and 224 are as follows:

"223 When the FWC must approve a termination of an enterprise agreement

If an application for the approval of a termination of an enterprise agreement is made under section 222, the FWC must approve the termination if:

(a) the FWC is satisfied that each employer covered by the agreement complied with subsection 220(2) (which deals with giving employees a reasonable opportunity to decide etc.) in relation to the agreement; and

(b) the FWC is satisfied that the termination was agreed to in accordance with whichever of subsection 221(1) or (2) applies (those subsections deal with agreement to the termination of different kinds of enterprise agreements by employee vote); and

(c) the FWC is satisfied that there are no other reasonable grounds for believing that the employees have not agreed to the termination; and

(d) the FWC considers that it is appropriate to approve the termination taking into account the views of the employee organisation or employee organisations (if any) covered by the agreement.

If a termination of an enterprise agreement is approved under section 223, the termination operates from the day specified in the decision to approve the termination."

[7] Based on the material in the application and supporting declaration, I am satisfied on the material provided to me that the employer took all reasonable steps to notify the employees of the matters required by s 220(2).

[8] I am also satisfied that the employer requested its employees to approve the proposed termination of the Agreement and that the request was "agreed to" by a valid majority of the employees who cast a vote approving the termination. The termination was agreed to on 24 February 2025.

[9] The application was made within 14 days after the termination was agreed to. No further period of time was required: s 222(3).

[10] On the material before me, including my further inquiries, I am satisfied there are no other reasonable grounds for believing that the employees have not agreed to the termination: s 223(c). I briefly record that a variation to the Agreement was approved on 31 January 2023. The Agreement itself was first approved in 2021 and included some pay increases but, relevantly, the last of those occurred on 1 July 2023 (which were not affected by the variation) and there have been no pay increases under the Agreement since. At the time the variation was approved, Commission assessment of payrates was that the rates were about 0.08% - 23.22% above Award. Against that, the Agreement was a 'loaded rates' agreement, meaning that employees were slightly better off under the Agreement than the relevant Award but not significantly so, at the time it was made and then varied. The rationale for terminating the Agreement was to revert to an Award-based (i.e. non-loaded rates) structure. There appears to be sufficient interest from employees for that to occur, particularly as it is more beneficial for weekend work where rates under the Award are clearly higher.

[11] While there were no employee organisations covered by the Agreement whose views needed to be taken into account under s 223(d), I am otherwise satisfied that it is appropriate to approve the termination.

[12] I am therefore satisfied that each of the requirements of ss 220, 221, 222 are met. Further, as the requirements of s 223(a)-(d) are met, I must terminate the Agreement and, by this decision, now do so.

[13] For the purposes of s 224, I specify the date the termination operates as 20 May 2025.

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