Bargaining agent's fees were politically contentious as they were seen as a form of compulsory union dues.

The High Court decided 6 judges to 1 (Kirby J dissenting) that only matters that "pertained to the relationship between employer and employee" could be placed in an enterprise bargaining agreement.

The industrial confusion specifically surrounded a raft of clauses, which, until the decision of Electrolux v AWU, had been commonly placed in enterprise bargaining agreements.

One final consequence of the case of Electrolux v AWU is that it upheld several previous decisions of the High Court, which had decided that provisions allowing for payroll deductions of union dues did not "pertain to the relationship between employer and employee."

The relevance of Electrolux v AWU as an authority in Australian industrial relations in many ways ceased, with the introduction of the WorkChoices legislation reform package.