Union delegates have new and important rights and protections that recognise their critically important work and the tremendous barriers they can face in the workplace.

The union movement has won important new rights and protections for delegates, which have been incorporated into the Fair Work Act and became operative from 1 July.

All new enterprise agreements must include the new provisions. The ACTU described the new rights and protections as “a significant achievement”.

A workplace delegate now has a clear right to represent the industrial interests of members (or persons eligible to be members).

“Industrial interests” are what members band together to fight for at work. These include lobbying a government for more funding for a delegate’s sector, signing up members to the union, or organising protected action.

In their role, under the new laws, union delegates are entitled to:

• reasonable communication
• reasonable access to the workplace and workplace facilities, and
• reasonable access to paid time during normal working hours to attend related training.

Workplace delegates also have important new protections.

An employer of a workplace delegate must not:

• unreasonably fail or refuse to deal with the workplace delegate, or
• knowingly or recklessly make a false or misleading representation to the workplace delegate, or
• unreasonably hinder, obstruct or prevent the exercise of the rights of the workplace delegate.

To be able to exercise these rights, a delegate needs to give their employer written notice of their appointment or election.

An employer must provide a workplace delegate with up to five days of paid training in their first year, and then one day of training annually in subsequent years.

Respected industrial relations expert David Peetz says the new rights and protections “will increase the voice of employees in the workplace”.

“(They) will have positive effects over the long run, on pay and conditions, union membership, workplace cooperation, grievance resolution and productivity,” he wrote in the online journal Pearls and Irritations.

“OECD research shows that consultation with employee representatives is crucial for ameliorating the impact of new technology, particularly artificial intelligence, including on safety.

“The OECD found that direct voice between workers and managers was associated with a higher quality work environment.”