This week, during a Senate inquiry in Melbourne on the Fair Work Amendment (Right to Request Casual Conversion) Bill, the unions have continued their campaign for small businesses to be forced to convert casual employees into permanent employees after six months. Exactly one year ago, the Australian Council of Trade Unions called for the right…
Category: News & Commentary
Update: Stop Bullying Orders
Stop bullying orders under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) are intended to have a wide application, extending beyond employees to ‘workers’ including contractors, volunteers and students gaining work experience. Recently, the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission in Bibawi v Stepping Stone Clubhouse Inc t/a Stepping Stone [2019] FWCFB 1314 considered whether Bibawi,…
Unnecessary and unconstitutional? The Practical and Legal Problems With the Criminalisation of Wage Theft
The deliberate underpayment of employee entitlements, such as wages, is not currently a criminal offence in Australia (despite the misleading use of the term by some). However, that is about to change with the Victorian Labor Government pledging to criminalise “wage theft” and the NSW Labor Opposition Party also committing to do the same should…
Why employment needs rules: Recent stories from Sport
The employment relationship is one of contract. Without a contract, there can be no employment. However, society has long recognised a need for more than merely a contract to govern the employment relationship. We need rules. A very clear example of this is a comparison between the NRL and the NFL – particularly in the…
Family and Domestic Violence Leave – Practical Considerations of the new National Employment Standard
Published 28 February 2019 In December 2018, the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act) was amended to insert a new entitlement in the National Employment Standards (NES) being five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave. The new entitlement extends the decision of the Fair Work Commission in March 2018 to grant five…
The misleading and inaccurate use of the term “wage theft”
Wage theft is one of the flavours of the month in the industrial relations space at the moment with repeated calls to introduce tough criminal penalties for those employers who “steal” their employees’ wage by underpaying them. There is no doubt that all employees should be paid what they are owed for a hard day’s…