The Fair work Australia (FWA) is a national independent organisation for workplace relations who has the authority

and power to perform workplace issues like enterprise bargaining , industrial relations, minimum wage rates to name a few. The industries chosen for comparison are Fast food industry, Rail industry, Food beverages and tobacco industry, Airlines operations industry (Jetstar) and Education industry. The three major issues of difference, hours of work, qualification and training and wages will be compared from each agreement and discussed to enlightened to reason out the differences.

The fast food industry enterprise agreement compared to the modern awards is very similar in terms of the minium and maximum hours of work for an employee on an eight to twelve hour day, for a thirsty egight hours per week routine, however, in the modern awards the meal breaks are prercisely outlined in regaqrds to hours worked as more than nine hours of work, the employee is entitled to two meal breaks one paid and the other unpaid with two tem minutes paid rest break. This information is not quite same in thew agreement as the agreement states Employee who works 9 hours or more on any day shall be allowed two paid 10 minute rest breaks. There is no mention of thrity minute meal breaks in the agreement. In comparison to the other agreements the Rail industry and the Airline industry provides a twenty four service to the public and hence the hours of work ranges from day to shift to night. The hours were not so vast in the Education industry as it was the only industry that had normal business hours between 7.30 a.m to 9.30 p.m.The fast food industry and the Food,Beverages and Tabacco industry also had shift work protocols and the meal breaks during an eight hour shift was an unpaid thirty minute break in most industry agreement except for the Food, Beverages and Tobacco industry where it was only twenty minutes paid break. The rail industry however, provided ten minutes paid tea breaks in between meal breaks and emphasised when it should be taken in order to avoid employee fatigue. Another area of difference noted under hours of work was the penalty rates for employees doing overtime. The two industries that were different in their penalty rates were the Food, Beverages and Tabacco industry, where the overtime rates started as time and a half for first three hours and double time thereafter and for the Education industry double time was only allowed if a teacher worked on a public holidays.

The main reason for the difference in meal breaks across the different industries was simply because of the nature of work and the hours of work. The reasons for industries to provide adequate meal and rest breaks to their employees such as the Rail industry was to be in compliance to the organisations Occupational health and safety policies. Secondly, the qualification and training provided according to the agreement improves the skills and determines the wages. Fast food industry agreement outlines the traineeship agreement within the industry to provide training to trainee employees to attain a certificate I, II, or III while on job, or partly on-the-job and partly off-the-job. In comparison to other agreements, the Jetstar airways store agreement (JASA)does not train employee on the field but expect the employee to have some qualification in order to do the job. Similary the New South Wales Teachers Union Collective agreement (NSWTCA) provides no training and employment is based on qualification and experience. According to Greig 1997 the reasons as to why an employer might consider training is that training is the vital part in the enterprises productivity and an employer often will accept an in-house training solution that reduces average learning time significantly and, at the same time, greatly improves the firms capability to deal with similar problems in the future. However, the agreement that was not heavy on training was for example the Jetstar Airways Store agreement only trained an employee or employees for a particular task to achieve level of skills. The reason for this is most likely to reduce internal or external training cost. for the nature of work suggests flexibility and Thirdly, the wage determination was based on the training and age for the Fast food industry. For the Fluor Global Services (Australia) Bluescope Steel, Port Kembla steel works rail Enterprise Agreement 2010, however based its wages on a level basis obtained after adequate training in the area of job position. This way of assessing wages was also used in the New South Wales Teachers Union Collective agreement where the teachers were assessed on Qualification and experience instead of training are as stated Upon a teacher achieving further experience or qualifications which entitle that teacher to an increase in salary such increase shall be calculated on and from the first pay period after the date the results of the course are notified by the accrediting institution or the relevant experience was obtained.