15.
employees. An association may apply to the AIRC for registration. If the application is successful, the association becomes an "organisation", which is deemed to be a body corporate.
39 Item 4 of Sched 4 to the Amending Act was included among the transitional provisions, and dealt with the operation of pre-reform awards.
40 Schedule 6 to the new Act provides transitional arrangements for certain employers and employees bound by federal awards. It is based upon the power given by s 51(xxxv). It provides in effect that employers who do not fall within s 6(1), and their employees, will continue to be bound by a federal award which applied to them before the reform commencement for a transitional period of up to five years, as a transitional award. During that period the AIRC can vary transitional awards but is prohibited from making new awards. There are limits on the content of transitional awards.
41 Schedule 8 preserves for a time the terms and conditions of employment of those employees within the meaning of s 5(1) who, but for the commencement of the reforms, would have been bound by, or whose employment would have been subject to, a State employment agreement, a State award or a State or Territory industrial law. Its object also is to encourage the making of workplace agreements under the new Act during that time. It creates a new federal instrument called a "notional agreement preserving State awards" containing the terms of the original State award or State or Territory industrial law. The pay rates, casual loading provisions, classification and coverage provisions in pre-reform wage instruments are converted to a preserved APCS pursuant to Div 2 of Pt 7. The notional agreement ceases to operate three years from the date of the reform commencement, or otherwise ceases to operate in relation to an employee if a workplace agreement comes into operation in relation to the employee, or if the employee becomes bound by an award. A term of a notional agreement that deals with a matter for which provision is made by the Pay and Conditions Standard is not enforceable. State employment agreements are converted into Preserved State agreements taken to have come into operation on the reform commencement. The new Act provides that industrial action must not be taken until after the date on which the agreement would have expired, or the end of three years, whichever is the sooner. The Pay and Conditions Standard does not apply to those covered by a Preserved State agreement. State industrial authorities are prohibited from exercising any function in respect of the converted instruments.
