A FWC senior member who once served as Fortescue's HR manager has observed in the course of granting its bid to transfer outsourced workers to a direct-employment deal that doing the same work for lesser conditions "inevitably" leads to discontent and would be "unfair".
As wage stagnation and cost-of-living issues continue to feature in the federal election campaign, a new report shows Australia has experienced the greatest deceleration in real pay growth in the OECD since 2013, despite its relatively strong employment growth and low unemployment, suggesting that policy and institutional factors are the main culprit, rather than market forces.
The TWU has struck a landmark agreement with food delivery business DoorDash on "core principles" for gig economy work that extends "appropriate" rights and entitlements to drivers and ensures they have a "collective voice" and access to dispute resolution.
Victoria's Andrews Labor government has committed almost $250 million to fund a two-year Australian-first pilot scheme giving paid sick leave to casual and contract workers in selected industries, while not revealing how it will be funded in the longer-term.
The next federal government should establish free early childhood education, amend the Fair Work Act to provide a legal right to a living wage for all workers, extend paid parental leave to 32 weeks and make the treasury responsible for "gender responsive budgeting", according to an academic group's report.
The Federal Court in agreeing to discontinue a casuals class action against Mount Arthur Coal and labour hire provider TESA has put to bed uncertainty over limitation periods to ensure the companies are not "forever exposed to the risk" of group members' claims.
Spotless has been fined $17,500 after falsely telling an accountant who had worked at the company for more than 30 years that he would not be receiving a redundancy payment because of a change to the law.
Hospitality workers on at least 25% above-award annualised salaries will earn overtime for such work beyond 12 hours a week or penalty rates for working more than 18 penalty rate hours, but the FWC concedes the minimum is "nowhere near enough" to compensate many.
Ahead of Friday's final full bench hearing into the ACTU's case for introducing paid family domestic violence leave into modern awards, the ACCI says it should have "little confidence" in the cost-benefit analyses provided by the union peak body's expert witnesses.
