A 9.2% increase to the national minimum wage and award wages would restore low-paid workers' buying power to pre-pandemic trends without significantly affecting inflation, according to research finding no consistent link between minimum wage rises and inflation since 1990.
The ACTU is calling for a 4.5% increase to the minimum wage, well above the current inflation rate of 2.4%, to lift the annual full-time rate by $2,143 to $49,770, while Victoria's Allan Government is making the same pitch as its federal Labor counterpart, calling for a real increase in the minimum wage.
Ahead of the May 3 poll, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is supporting a real pay increase in this year's minimum wage case, going further than his 2022 election call for the FWC to ensure workers' pay not "go backwards".
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Tensions in the FWC's continuing consideration of regulated labour hire arrangement orders in the mining industry have spilled into view, former federal Labor politician and current tribunal deputy president Terri Butler having to fend off a recusal application citing her supposed "prosecution" of "same job, same pay" policies while in Parliament.
In a decision upending unions' understanding of what constitutes the base rate of pay under the pilots award and undoing an underpayments claim, the FWC has held that it does not include general wage-related allowances even where they form part of the minimum payment.
A transport company is to be referred to the FWO over its "alarming" indifference to its obligations as an employer, after an unfair dismissal case in which it exhibited "disregard" for the FWC before being ordered to pay $30,000 to a former worker sacked without warning.
An employer forced a burlesque performer to resign from her "dream job" as a result of its late payment of wages and the business's "persistent disorganisation", the FWC has found.
A Federal Court judge has slammed a stockbroker founder's "outrageous" behaviour in the course of dismissing a damages claim against two former employees who enticed clients to a rival, while separately finding that he unlawfully deducted almost $50,000 from one advisor's pay to cover travel and entertaining costs.
