The Albanese Government has again kept its election promise to urge the FWC's Annual Wage Review bench to order real wage increases for award-reliant and minimum wage workers that keep pace with the cost of living.
The ACTU is seeking a 5% rise in award rates and the federal minimum wage to keep pace with cost-of-living pressures "that have gotten a lot tougher" with the fuel price rises from the Middle East war and interest rate hikes.
A full Federal Court has confirmed that homecare, disability and social workers should not be paid penalty rates for shifts immediately before or after sleepovers, four months after the FWC made draft award variations that will achieve the opposite.
In a significant judgment on tertiary education sector pay, a full Federal Court has today found that under the academic staff award, a casual lecturer should have been paid for time spent marking assessments not directly related to particular lectures or tutorials.
A FWC full bench has found that shiftworkers employed by a major stevedoring company are entitled to payment on top of their ordinary weekly wage if they are rostered off on a public holiday.
A small business and its owner have been hit with fines, compensation and damages totalling more than $300,000 after the "deplorable" exploitation of a young worker with an intellectual disability who went almost two years without being paid.
The FWC has upbraided an early learning facility for seeking to override a part-time employee's right to predictable hours that the employer found "commercially or operationally inconvenient".
The MEU has sought High Court leave to intervene in the Coal LSL challenge to a finding that Orica's obligation to make contributions to the scheme on behalf of shotfirers ceased in 2022 when it sold a separate business providing services to underground mines.
A FWC full bench has slightly altered the issues it will consider in its review of award part-time provisions after considering submissions and is seeking further feedback this month on the scope of a research proposal.
The FWC is proposing to quickly insert a far broader delegates' rights term in modern awards, following a full Federal Court decision to quash the Commission's previous "impermissibly confined" term.
