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.
Unions and employer organisations will be barred from refusing membership or the benefits of it on the basis of religious beliefs or activity, but faith-based organisations will be allowed to engage in biased employment practices under the Morrison Government's proposed religious discrimination legislation, which is likely to be introduced to Federal Parliament tomorrow.
In a significant ruling reinforcing the need for strict adherence to strike laws, the CFMMEU has failed to overturn a finding that an employer rightly deducted 12 hours' pay from mineworkers who took a total of about 30 minutes across three days to secure their machinery in preparation for protected action.
Federal Labor's 'Same Job, Same Pay' legislation introduced into Parliament yesterday has won the endorsement of IR legal expert Anthony Forsyth, who says it represents the "next necessary step" in addressing the undesirable effects of labour hire workers being engaged for lengthy periods on lower wages and conditions than direct employees.
The FWC has upheld a government-funded organisation's summary sacking of a support officer who claimed ownership of a program's intellectual property while planning with a team of consultants to take it outside.
Federal Opposition leader Anthony Albanese this morning confirmed his determination to make working conditions a major battleground in the upcoming Federal election with his introduction of a private member's bill aimed at erasing the gap between directly-employed and labour hire workers.
Unions have branded further legislation by the Morrison Government to protect migrant workers as "inadequate, given the scale and of nature" of exploitation, a view endorsed by a leading academic researcher.
A National Rugby League referee has failed to make it onto the field to contest his general protections claim, after the FWC ruled that the employer did not dismiss him, but that his "maximum-term" 12-month contract expired.
A HR manager who complained of "manhandling" and victim-blaming has failed to obtain anti-bullying orders against a school leadership team, after the FWC found she took an inflexible approach and refused to follow reasonable directions.
The Victorian Supreme Court has thrown out an interlocutory bid to quash State Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton's public health orders that mandate workplace vaccinations and to stop him issuing further orders.
