'Promoting cooperative and productive workplace relations': exploring the Fair Work Commission's new role

Abstract

The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) has recently been amended to confer a new function on the Fair Work Commission (FWC), that of ‘promoting cooperative and productive workplace relations and preventing disputes’. We review the background to this change, including the decision under the original Fair Work regime to confer this function on the Fair Work Ombudsman, as well as the more recent shift in approach that has occurred under the FWC’s current President, Justice Iain Ross. Now that the change has been formalised, we also explore some of its potential implications for the FWC, in light of the role the institution and its predecessors have historically played in regulating workplace relations.