Hospitality union Hospo Voice stages a protest about wage theft in Melbourne’s iconic Degraves Street in October 2018. Five venues in the well-known cafe precinct were accused of underpaying workers.
United Voice/AAP
As many as half of all temporary migrant workers are being underpaid. After a two-year inquiry, the Migrant Workers’ Taskforce has provided a blueprint to do something about it.
As ACTU secretary, Sally McManus has proven effective at elevating the debate over workplace reform.
AAP/Alex Murray
Are penalty rates no longer relevant in the retail industry — and do they cost jobs? Recent research compared two neighbouring states where one raised rates to the other’s level to find the answer.
Protesters were back on the streets demanding penalty rates be left alone when the Coalition government asked the Productivity Commission to look at workplace relations last year.
AAP/Angus Livingston
Cutting penalty rates can be a vote-changer and the looming Fair Work Commission decision is tricky for both sides of politics. So what cards do the parties hold and how might they play them?
Achieving genuine co-operation in Australian workplaces is difficult.
AAP/Angela Brkic
The Fair Work Act delivers a much more peculiar system of collective bargaining than many realise. It has outcomes that contradict the hopes and fears of both sides of the IR debate.
Reporter Scott McIntyre lost his job with SBS following several controversial tweets on Anzac Day – but does the Fair Work Act protect the right to political expression?
Dave Hunt/AAP
Scott McIntyre’s legal challenge against being sacked by SBS will be an interesting test of whether the Fair Work Act offers any safe haven for employees to maintain a personal and political identity.
Workplace relations reform: it’s not as if we haven’t been here before.
Alan Porritt/AAP
When the federal government asked the Productivity Commission (PC) to conduct a review into certain aspects of workplace laws, it argued a “root and branch” inquiry was urgently needed. As everyone gears…
Was the Coalition too quick to take up Gerard Henderson’s IR club theme?
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
The Abbott government will soon ask the Productivity Commission to review the Fair Work system. In parallel with that review, we need a more sophisticated debate about our workplace relations framework…
The ‘brittle’ side of industrial relations: CFMEU members in dispute with their employer, Energy Australia.
Julian Smith/AAPImage
Over the course of the last few months, industrial relations has once again become a major issue on the national political agenda. Allegations of union corruption, uncompetitive wage deals, inflexible…
Flexible work practices: for employees or employers?
Tracey Nearmy/AAPImage
If you were to choose one buzzword that, despite its vagueness, has dominated industrial relations debate over three decades, it would be “flexibility”. It has emerged again in rhetoric surrounding Toyota’s…
Calls by AWU chief Paul Howes for a “grand compact” are fanciful, but he’s right we need to shift our thinking away from a focus on yet another round of IR reform.
AAP
It is easy to see why media coverage of Paul Howes’ National Press Club address has focused on his claims that wage growth has been too high in some areas and that the adversarial industrial relations…
Penalties for unlawful picketing will increase under a planned new ABCC.
David Crosling/AAP
The Abbott Government is this year preparing to revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) after it was renamed and stripped of many of its powers by the Gillard Government in 2012…
Victims of domestic violence can suffer at work as well as at home.
AAP/Angela Brkic
As global attention has focused this week on the issue of violence against women via the One Billion Rising movement, Australia is at the forefront of a wholly new approach to dealing with the impacts…
Workplace relations minister Bill Shorten has largely supported the recommendations made by the House of Representatives inquiry into workplace bullying.
AAP
The federal government’s response to the House of Representatives inquiry into workplace bullying is a welcome development in preventing this workplace hazard. 19 of the 23 recommendations were supported…
Are penalty rates becoming old fashioned?
Retail image sourced from www.shutterstock.com
There have been renewed calls from employers - mainly in the retail sector - for reductions in the wage premiums (or penalty rates) that industries are required to pay staff for work undertaken at non-standard…
Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten has ruled out making any sweeping changes to the Fair Work Act.
AAP
The post implementation review of the Fair Work Act, 2009, was released this afternoon. A three member panel – Professor Ron McCallum, Dr John Edwards and Michael Moore – produced the three hundred–odd…
If the government is serious about maintaining its economic prosperity into the future, it needs to address Australia’s historically poor productivity growth.
Ann Douglas
The majority of Australians would prefer higher living standards. This can take the form of better access to better healthcare services and education, better environmental outcomes, more time for friends…
Strong past productivity performance is not the best indicator of current performance.
AAP
As the Commissioners of the Fair Work Act Review work their way through the mountain of submissions, one of the most critical aspects they will be called on to consider is the relationship between labour…
International examples show that quicker access to arbitration could have avoided the drastic action taken by Qantas chief Alan Joyce.
AAP
As the Qantas dispute moves into the arbitration phase in Fair Work Australia (FWA), it is timely to consider whether the tests for access to arbitration under the Fair Work Act need refining. Prompted…