Enterprise Agreements (EBAs): What They Are and How to Find Yours

Enterprise Agreement Search and EBA Lookup: Use the Fair Work Commission

The only official enterprise agreement search is the Fair Work Commission’s agreement Document Search. An EBA lookup there needs the employer’s name, which is on your payslip. The Commission publishes all current agreements and details of past ones, and it also keeps these lists:

• Agreements in progress: applications the Commission is considering for approval now, including new agreements and variations.
• Terminated agreements: an Excel list with the title, matter number and end date, updated monthly. Once an agreement ends, the document is no longer public.
• All agreements since 1994 that have not been terminated, as an Excel download, plus a list for each year (updated weekly for the current year) that you can search by industry, agreement ID or matter number.

The steps below walk through the search. Once you have the agreement, use the award comparison to check its base rate against the award, or look up a major employer in the table of big-employer agreements.

How to Find Your Enterprise Agreement: EBA Search, Step by Step

1. Check whether one applies. Look at your payslip or contract for an agreement name, check the company intranet, or ask HR, payroll, a colleague or your union.
2. Open the Fair Work Commission’s Document Search (from the Commission’s Find an enterprise agreement page). It holds every current agreement and details of past ones.
3. Search the business name in quotation marks. Use the trading name, the legal employer name or the ABN, all usually on your payslip. For example, “Coles Supermarkets”.
4. Add a location if a large employer has several agreements, for example by state, site or division.
5. Pick the most recent one. Check the approval date. Several versions often exist, and the newest approved one replaces the old.
6. Try the advanced filters to narrow the results. If you know the agreement ID (AE number) or matter number (AG number), the Commission’s yearly agreement lists (Excel or PDF, on the Find an enterprise agreement page) can be searched by either, and it also publishes a list of all agreements made since 1994 that are still operating.

Can’t find it? It may still be in approval (the Commission lists agreements in progress), or it may have been terminated; terminated agreements are listed but no longer published. If you work for a WA local government, you’re in the state system, not the Fair Work Commission’s.

Reading Your Agreement: Where the Pay Terms Are

• Coverage clause near the start: confirms which employees and roles it covers.
• Table of contents: find wages or classifications, hours, penalty rates, overtime, allowances and leave.
• Pay tables are often in a schedule at the back, with a column for each pay rise date.
• Search the PDF for the term you need, such as “Sunday”, “leave loading” or “time off instead of”.
• Dispute resolution clause: the steps to follow if you think you’re being paid wrongly.

Enterprise Agreement Pay Rates at Big Employers

We’ve read these agreements in full and turned them into pay tables. Each page cites the agreement’s AE and AG numbers so you can check it on the Commission’s site.

How Agreement Pay Relates to the Award

An award won’t apply if an enterprise agreement covers you (FWO). But three safety nets remain:

• The award is a floor on base pay. The base rate in the agreement can’t be less than the base rate in the award that covers you. When annual wage reviews lift award rates above an older agreement’s rates, the employer must pay at least the award base rate.
• The better off overall test. Before approving, the Commission must be satisfied that each award-covered employee, and each prospective one, would be better off overall under the agreement than under the award. It’s an overall judgement, so an agreement can trade, say, lower weekend penalties for higher base rates, as long as the package is better (FWC).
• The National Employment Standards still apply: annual leave, personal leave, notice, redundancy and the rest.

Expired Agreements Keep Applying

Every agreement has a nominal expiry date, no more than 4 years after approval. It is not an end date. The agreement continues to operate until it is replaced by a new approved agreement or terminated by the Commission, and its terms are fully enforceable even years later (FWC). A replacement agreement applies from 7 days after approval unless it specifies a later date.

For example, the Bunnings Retail Enterprise Agreement 2023 (AG2023/1996, AE520766) reached its nominal expiry on 31 August 2026 and still sets Bunnings pay rates. For example, the KFC National Enterprise Agreement 2020 (AG2019/4042, AE507798) reached its nominal expiry on 29 April 2024 and still sets KFC pay rates.

Older agreements made before 2010 (“zombie agreements”) are different: those still operating automatically ended on 7 December 2023 unless an extension was applied for.

Types of Agreement

• Single-enterprise agreements: one employer, or two or more related employers.
• Multi-enterprise agreements: more than one employer.
• Greenfields agreements: a single or multi-enterprise agreement for a new enterprise that has no employees yet.

An enterprise agreement is also different from an employment contract: an agreement covers at least 2 employees, while a contract is between you and your employer and can’t give you less than your agreement or award (FWO).

Checking Your Payslip Against Your Agreement

Once you have the pay table, check your base hourly rate, then the penalty and overtime lines. Our tools use the same arithmetic an agreement does:

• Overtime pay calculator for overtime and penalty hours
• Backpay calculator if a pay rise was paid late
• Take-home pay calculator for what lands in your account
• Award rates to compare with the award floor

Frequently Asked Questions