The Albanese Government's Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, introduced today, ushers in a new multi-employer bargaining regime, but with safeguards that will bar participation by unions with a record of flouting workplace laws, limit industrial action to those in a "supported bargaining stream" and exclude the commercial construction sector.
The Albanese Government's first major tranche of IR legislation beefs-up workers' rights to secure flexible working arrangements and empowers the FWC to arbitrate if conciliation of a refused request fails.
Victoria's Andrews Labor Government has pledged a more hands-on approach to regulating the gig economy, with plans to introduce legislation next year if it wins the November 26 State election.
The Albanese Government has confirmed its Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill to be into introduced into Parliament next Thursday will include measures to close the gender pay gap, but IR academic Shae McCrystal says any legislation must also provide a right to strike or compulsory arbitration for workers engaging in multi-employer bargaining.
The Senate Work and Care inquiry's Labor and Greens majority is urging the Albanese Government to move swiftly to consider a right to disconnect, make flexibility requests an enforceable right and provide "roster justice" by ensuring workers with variable hours have predictability and certainty, in a 152-page interim report tabled this afternoon.
A special panel, similar to that proposed for the road transport industry, could be established within the FWC to set minimum pay and conditions for gig workers in disability, aged and home care, a leading IR academic has told a parliamentary inquiry.
The Albanese Government will phase-in an increase in the total package of federally-funded paid parental leave from the current 20 weeks to 26 weeks between 2024 and 2026.
Employers and unions are engaged in last-minute jockeying ahead of the Albanese Government's first tranche of IR legislation, which is expected to be introduced into Federal Parliament in coming weeks.
Australia's largest tertiary education sector employer has commended the regulatory inclusion of s-xual harassment among instances of serious misconduct as having produced a "nuanced" shift wherein the emphasis is no longer on why perpetrators should be dismissed, but rather on why they "should not" be sacked.
