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Conciliation conferences have become less about hearing both sides of a dispute and much more focused on offers, so amendments designed to reduce the Fair Work Commission's workload should also be positive for employers, a workplace lawyer says.

As reported last week, the Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1 Bill aims to empower the Commission to deal with general protections dismissal and unlawful termination disputes through conciliation or mediation, without first requiring an arbitrated decision about whether an applicant was in fact dismissed or terminated.

"Moving to conciliation is a good idea because in my experience, most people would like to resolve at the early stages if the other side's being reasonable," says Aitken Partners principal in employment law, Bianca Mazzarella.

"If you are forced to go to a jurisdictional objection hearing, just to determine if you can even get started, the cost is huge in a 'bear your own cost' jurisdiction," she tells HR Daily...