Employers have described today's FWC decision to abolish junior rates for 18 to 20-year-olds as "disappointing" and a "financial blow", as the tribunal conceded the likelihood of a negative effect on employment of workers as businesses adjust to increased labour costs.
Ahead of a 17-day full bench hearing of the shop union's junior rates case from October 20, the FWC has published summaries of the "substantial" evidence, which show that the AiG is arguing that lower rates create an incentive to employ young people, and RAFFWU characterising junior wages as a form of "child labour exploitation".
A model working from home clause in a key award should avoid contributing to remote workers working "long and unsociable hours", address employer provision of equipment and apply to all employees, according to a Centre for Future Work report.
A parliamentary inquiry has recommended the Albanese Government consider amending the Fair Work Act's right to request flexible work to ensure menopausal women can access it, while it also wants reproductive leave added to the NES and awards.
Employment rights legal centre JobWatch says a client survey suggests most employers are failing to take internal complaints of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination seriously or to adequately protect employees, prompting recommendations to expand positive duty and vicarious liability provisions, and actively monitor compliance.
Maurice Blackburn's head of employment and industrial law, Josh Bornstein, says damages for discrimination and harassment "remain persistently low" but he expects an upwards trajectory as their impact has been "laid bare" and expectations are now clearer.
"Australia's unluckiest job applicant" has been ordered to pay a labour hire company indemnity costs of $44,000 for a "time-wasting" failed discrimination case, in which he sought $115,000 in compensation and refused an early $5000 settlement offer.
A UK tribunal has found that a job interviewer asked seven questions that could be "reasonable and entirely innocuous" individually, but cumulatively could constitute racial discrimination.
Individual age discrimination complaints have "fundamental limitations for achieving systemic change" and should be supported by other regulatory tools, greater transparency and collective action, an academic says.
