Terminating by agreement

See Fair Work Act 2009 s.219

If an agreement covers a single employer – the employer and the employees covered by the enterprise agreement may jointly agree to terminate the agreement.

If an agreement covers 2 or more employers – ALL of the employers and the employees covered by the enterprise agreement may jointly agree to terminate the agreement.

A termination of an enterprise agreement has no effect unless it is approved by the Fair Work Commission.

Limitation – greenfields agreement

A greenfields agreement can only be terminated by agreement if 1 or more of the persons who will be necessary for the normal conduct of the enterprise concerned, and are covered by the agreement, have been employed.

See Fair Work Act s.220

An employer covered by an enterprise agreement may request the employees covered by the agreement to approve a proposed termination of the agreement by voting for it.

Before making the request, the employer must:

• take all reasonable steps to notify the employees of the following:
  • the time and place at which the vote will occur
  • the voting method that will be used, and
• give the employees a reasonable opportunity to decide whether they want to approve the proposed termination.

The employer may request that the employees vote by ballot, by an 'electronic method' or by some other method.

Related information

• Voting methods

See Fair Work Act s.221

Single-enterprise agreement

If the employees of an employer, or each employer, covered by a single-enterprise agreement have been asked to approve a proposed termination of the agreement, the termination is agreed to when a majority of the employees who cast a valid vote approve the termination.

Multi-enterprise agreement

If the employees of each employer covered by a multi-enterprise agreement have been asked to approve a proposed termination of the agreement, the termination is agreed to when a majority of the employees of each individual employer who cast a valid vote have approved the termination.

See Fair Work Act s.222

Application for approval

If a termination of an enterprise agreement has been agreed to, a person covered by the agreement must apply to the Commission for approval of the termination. An application for termination of an enterprise agreement by agreement must be made with a Form F24.

Material to accompany the application

The application must be accompanied by a completed and signed declaration from the applicant in support of the termination by agreement.[1] [Form F24A]

The declaration must be completed truthfully.

It is an offence to knowingly give information that is false or misleading or which omits any matter or thing without which the information is misleading, or to knowingly produce a false or misleading document, in support of an application for approval of termination of an enterprise agreement, the punishment for which is imprisonment for up to 12 months – see s.137.1 and s.137.2 of the Criminal Code.

Links to forms

• Form F24 – Application for termination of an enterprise agreement by agreement
• Form F24A – Statutory declaration in support of termination of an enterprise agreement

All forms are available on the Forms page of the Commission's website.

When the application must be made

The application must be made:

• within 14 days after the termination is agreed to, or
• if in all the circumstances the Commission considers it fair to extend that period – within such further period as the Commission allows.

See Fair Work Act s.223

If an application is made for approval of an agreed termination of an enterprise agreement, the Commission must approve the termination if:

• satisfied that each employer covered by the agreement complied with the requirement to give employees a reasonable opportunity to decide whether they want to approve the proposed termination,
• satisfied that the termination was agreed to by employees (as above)
• satisfied that there are no other reasonable grounds for believing that the employees have not agreed to the termination, and
• the Commission considers that it is appropriate to approve the termination taking into account the views of the union or unions (if any) covered by the agreement.

See Fair Work Act s.224

If a termination of an enterprise agreement is approved by the Commission, the termination operates from the day specified in the decision to approve the termination.