The Albanese Government should substantially boost the funding and powers of a renamed FWO to tackle migrant worker exploitation and replace the "failed" assurance protocol that aims to protect visa holders who report being shortchanged, according to a new think tank publication.
The Albanese Government says it will amend the Fair Work Act to underline that temporary migrant workers are entitled to its protections, as it continues its drip-feed of provisions in the Protecting Worker Entitlements Bill to be introduced to Parliament this week.
The Albanese Government will soon introduce further IR legislation to include superannuation payments in the National Employment Standards (NES), clarify coverage of temporary migrant workers and ensure stronger access to unpaid parental leave.
A former economics professor's troubled relationship with workplace laws has continued, after a court accepted that he "actively" managed an underpaying grocery store previously fined for similar breaches.
If it takes power at the May 21 election, the Opposition is planning to overhaul the Pacific Islands seasonal farm worker programs, while dumping the Morrison Government's agricultural visa, which extended to South-East Asian nations.
The Morrison Government has today introduced legislation in response to two Migrant Workers' Taskforce recommendations to make it an offence to pressure temporary migrant workers to breach their visa conditions and to create a new power to ban employers that underpay them.
The underpayment of migrant workers significantly worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a large Unions NSW audit revealing 88% of a sample of foreign language job ads in the state offered below award wages.
A 61-year-old former economics professor has been fined $31,000 for underpaying two visa holders employed at a Korean grocery, a court finding he deliberately arranged for them to receive as little as $10 an hour.
The FWO is urging 7-Eleven to enter into a second compliance deed, following "substantial improvements" to payroll and time-recording systems and audits leading to backpayments of more than $102,000 under its first arrangement.
A restaurant unfairly dismissed a 457-visaholder cook who had an imposter sit his English competency test and secretly recorded conversations after reporting it for alleged exploitation, the FWC has held.
