Legislation to ease the FWC's surging workload and introduce procurement arrangements enabling the Albanese Government to prefer suppliers with enterprise agreements has passed federal parliament less than a month after its introduction.
In a significant ruling on applications to work from home, the FWC has agreed with a multinational company's claim that its payroll officer could not devote sufficient attention to "complex" tasks while caring for two children under five.
The House of Representatives has passed legislation to reduce the FWC's workload and introduce procurement arrangements enabling the Albanese Government to prefer suppliers with enterprise agreements, while the Greens have backed a motion to give the Senate just an hour to debate it before a final vote on Monday.
The FWC is seeking feedback by next Wednesday on a set of amendments to the tribunal's rules to accommodate applications and notices introduced by the Closing Loopholes legislation, while also fixing minor errors and boosting clarity.
The income and compensation caps for unfair dismissal claims are set to increase next Wednesday, along with filing fees for a range of other applications, while payday super will also take effect.
Unions have failed to convince FWC President Adam Hatcher that last year's legislation "protecting" penalty rates and overtime is "fatal" to employer cases seeking to vary the clerks and banking awards, with the joined matters referred to a full bench.
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A FWC full bench has taken the extraordinary step of quashing a five-year-old decision that left thousands of BP employees uncovered by an enterprise agreement while the company remained unaware it had been terminated.
In a sign of the FWC's growing frustration with not just the number of applications flowing across its desk but the prevalence of applicants dropping off the map, a member has lamented a worker's "disconcerting" failure to engage with the tribunal and the concomitant waste of valuable "time and resources".
Industrial action has ceased at hydrocarbons producer Inpex after it reached an in-principle agreement with the Offshore Alliance containing what the unions claim are "great" pay rises they claim will set the standard for negotiations underway for a new Shell Prelude agreement, while they have credited the FWC's interest-based bargaining efforts with hastening a resolution.
