A leading IR legal expert says Victoria's selection as host jurisdiction for a harmonised labour hire licensing scheme and National Labour Hire Regulator is a "fitting reflection" of its contribution in recent years, but the industry peak body has expressed disappointment and surprise.
A court has issued rare orders compelling a former economics professor to face FWO questions under oath about his capacity to pay penalties and compensation arising from underpayment judgments handed down in 2019 and 2020.
A business that knowingly and repeatedly breached labour hire licensing laws has been fined more than $600,000, which is believed to be the highest in Australian labour hire law history.
The Victorian Government, the State's Trades Hall and the ASU are calling for the Albanese Government to stick to its pre-election commitment to enact a carve-out in the Closing Loopholes Bill so that state wage theft laws can continue to operate.
The process of obtaining an entry permit should be "no more than onerous" than that for a passport unless there are "good grounds" for suspecting the applicant might not be a fit and proper person, according to the Booth-Hamberger review of regulation of registered organisations.
Employers face ten years in prison and maximum fines of $8 million or up to three times the stolen sum if it exceeds the cap, under new criminal sanctions in the Albanese Government's "Closing Loopholes" legislation, to be introduced into Federal Parliament tomorrow.
Unions NSW and human rights' groups are pushing for the Albanese Government to legislate an "ironclad guarantee" that migrant workers who report employer exploitation will not have their visas cancelled.
Large corporates and universities accounted for almost two-thirds of the $509 million in unpaid wages and entitlements recovered by the FWO in 2022-23 on behalf of more than 250,000 workers, the workplace watchdog revealed today.
