Skilled Group Limited (“Skilled Group”) is the parent company of Waycon Pty Ltd (“Waycon”) which provides labour hire services to clients in the building and construction industry in New South Wales. Employees of Waycon are covered by an agreement with the CFMEU, the Waycon Services Pty Ltd CFMEU NSW Labour Hire Enterprise Agreement 2009-2011.
Waycon is providing supplementary labour to Bovis Lend Lease (“BLL”) on the Charlestown Square Shopping Centre Project at Newcastle. When Waycon rejected a claim by the CFMEU and employees that it pay Waycon employees the same rates of pay as BLL employees are paid under the relevant BLL collective agreement, five employees resigned and commenced to impose a picket at the project site entrance on 29 July 2009.
Skilled Group applied to Fair Work Australia (“FWA”) for an order to stop industrial action at the site, whilst Waycon also applied to FWA for a ruling to declare that Waycon was not obliged to pay BLL rates as sought by the CFMEU.
A hearing took place before Commissioner Cargill where the employers sought undertakings from the CFMEU that it would not be involved in industrial action at the site. Following uneventful discussions, the employers advised FWA that they would withdraw their applications. They said they would replace the employees who had resigned and if unlawful industrial action occurred they would make a fresh application to FWA.