An enterprise agreement passes the better off overall test (BOOT) if the Fair Work Commission is satisfied, at the test time, that each award covered employee, and each prospective award covered employee, would be better off overall if the agreement applied to the employee than if the relevant modern award applied to the employee. It is not sufficient that a majority of the employees would be better off.
Performing the BOOT requires the identification of those terms of an agreement that are more beneficial and those that are less beneficial to an employee than the relevant award. An agreement may pass the BOOT even if some award entitlements have been reduced, as long as overall those reductions are more than offset by the benefits of the agreement. Each employee must be better off under the agreement, not just receive benefits equivalent to what they would have received under the relevant award.
Where an award entitlement has no counterpart in the agreement or the corresponding entitlement under the agreement is less beneficial or more restricted in application than in the award, this will affect the Commission’s assessment of whether the agreement passes the BOOT.[1]