Fair Work Commission

Overview

The general protections provisions provide protections for national system employers and national system employees, organisations and other associations of national system employers or employees.

It also provides protections in some circumstances for other persons, including employers and employees in state industrial relations systems, independent contractors and the persons who engage them (principals), state registered industrial associations, and other associations of state employers or employees.^[1]

On the face of the provisions, the general protections regulate the conduct of all employers, employees, principals, independent contractors, industrial associations and, in some cases, all persons. However, the general protections only apply to the extent provided for below.^[2]

The general protections provisions protect persons who are:

• employees (including prospective employees)
• employers (including prospective employers)
• independent contractors (including prospective independent contractors)
• a person (the principal) who has entered into a contract for services with an independent contractor (including a principal who proposes to enter into a contract), and
• an industrial association (including an officer or member of an industrial association);

in respect of the following action:

• action taken by a constitutionally-covered entity
• action that affects the activities, functions, relationships or business of a constitutionally-covered entity (or is capable of affecting or is taken with intent to affect)
• action that consists of advising, encouraging or inciting, or action taken with intent to coerce, a constitutionally-covered entity to take, or not take, particular action in relation to another person (or threatening to do so)
• action taken in a Territory or a Commonwealth place
• action taken by:
  • a trade and commerce employer, or
  • a Territory employer

  that affects, is capable of affecting or is taken with intent to affect an employee of the employer, or

• action taken by an employee of:
  • a trade and commerce employer, or
  • a Territory employer

  that affects, is capable of affecting or is taken with intent to affect the employee’s employer.^[3]

The general protections provisions also have effect as if any reference to an employer or employee was a reference to a national system employer or employee.^[4]

References