Why instructing your labour hire agency may not satisfy your enterprise agreement
Telling your labour hire agency to "sort the pay out" may not be enough — the Fair Work Commission has just said so.
When an enterprise agreement promises that labour hire workers will be paid under that agreement, the employer can carry a duty to make sure it actually happens. Passing the instruction down the chain is not the same as ensuring the outcome.
That is the practical takeaway from a Fair Work Commission decision handed down on May 27, 2026, in a dispute between the United Workers' Union and Electrolux Home Products.
The work in question happens at Electrolux's distribution site in Beverley, South Australia. The site runs on a mix of direct employees, who are covered by the company's 2022 enterprise agreement, and labour hire workers supplied by Trojan Recruitment Group, who work for Trojan and sit outside the agreement.
At the centre sat Clause 13, which states that labour hire workers "will be paid in accordance with this agreement." The union asked the Commission, under section 739 of the Fair Work Act 2009, to settle what that means in real terms - given the labour hire workers and their employer are not covered by the document.
The union's case was that before October 2025 the Trojan workers got the agreement's base rates but did not accrue leave and were not paid casual loading in its place. It also questioned whether their work fell within the agreement's classifications.
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