An Uber driver's failure to convince the FWC that he is an employee is unlikely to deter other challenges according to an academic, while the case raises questions as to whether traditional legal tests can be applied to the gig economy.
An academic has welcomed a UK appeal tribunal decision holding that Uber drivers are workers entitled to minimum wages and conditions, saying that it confirms that the employment models used by digital platform providers lack any legitimacy.
The FWC's minimum wage panel has decided against holding a preliminary hearing to consider new research on the budget required to sustain a healthy lifestyle, after the proposal only won support from Catholic employers.
A court has found a husband and wife who performed largely home-based clerical work exclusively for one business before their services were further outsourced were employees rather than contractors because the company had an "undoubted authority to control" the relationship.
A cleaner who invoiced as both a sole trader and a company but claims he was an employee is pursuing Woolworths and three contracting businesses for more than $300,000 in underpaid wages and unpaid overtime, annual leave and superannuation he says he should have been paid between 2004 and 2015.
The Fair Work Ombudsman is investigating whether Uber's engagement of drivers complies with Australian workplace laws, in what might be a test of the legal status of gig economy employment arrangements.
A court has found an employer underpaid a worker by more than $230,000 because it "recklessly disguised the true legal nature" of a 20-year-plus employment relationship by classifying him as an independent contractor.
NSW IRC member Peter Newall has lavished praise on parties to a new industry rates determination that started in bitter dispute and ended in mutual celebration, after progressing in the most "sophisticated" manner he'd seen in more than two decades in IR.
