Voting request orders

As an employer,  you need to ask your employees to vote on a proposed multi-enterprise agreement. You must have written approval from all relevant employee organisations before holding the vote. 

If you don’t get written approval from the employee organisations, you can apply to us for a voting request order. A voting request order allows you to ask your employees to vote for a proposed multi-enterprise agreement or a variation of a multi-enterprise agreement without needing approval from the relevant employee organisations.

A bargaining representative for the agreement can apply for a voting request order if a multi-enterprise agreement is proposed. 

For more information about bargaining representatives, see section 176 and section 177 of the Fair Work Act 2009.

If a variation to a multi-enterprise agreement is proposed, you can apply for a voting request order if you are:

• an employer covered by the enterprise agreement, or
• an employee organisation covered by the enterprise agreement, or
• an affected employee for the variation.

We must make a voting request order if we are satisfied that:

• each employee organisation’s failure to provide written approval allowing you to ask your employees to vote, was unreasonable in the circumstances, and 
• if the request relates to a proposed multi-enterprise agreement, asking the employees to vote would not be inconsistent with or undermine good faith bargaining.

See section 240B of the Fair Work Act.

If you would like to make an application for a voting request order, you can use Form F1.