Four weeks ahead of employees winning a legislated right to disconnect, public service employers have been told they will need to train HR professionals and managers about the interaction of the new entitlement with general protections laws and consider updating job descriptions to ensure they "accurately reflect" expectations about after-hours contact.
The FWC is inviting submissions by June 11 on a "right to disconnect" audit of all 155 modern awards focusing on terms involving spans of hours, notice, supervisory duties, and requirements to remain on call, on standby or return to duty.
A court has hit a former Indian High Commissioner with maximum fines for entrapping a worker in "powerless domestic servitude" in the guise of a diplomatic posting, paying her $9 daily to keep his palatial Canberra home 17.5 hours a day, seven days a week.
A labour law expert has told a Senate inquiry he supports the Albanese Government's Bill to remove criminal sanctions from right to disconnect laws but he believes there should be a new requirement for all agreements to contain a disconnection rights term.
The FWC has identified 11 award provisions, extending to overtime, reasonable additional hours and on-call, that might interact with new terms to entrench the right to disconnect, ahead of the new laws taking effect in late August.
A FWC full bench has granted the TWU an intractable bargaining declaration at a second Cleanaway site, in Wollongong, ahead of a hearing to consider a determination for the waste giant's Erskine Park site in April.
Closing Loopholes 2 provisions that substantially increase penalties for breaching the Fair Work Act should prompt employers to consider boosting their investment in payroll systems and checking compliance, Adelaide University Professor of Law Andrew Stewart says.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has this morning introduced legislation to ensure that employers that flout right to disconnect "stop orders" cannot face criminal charges.
The Greens says they have secured support from the Albanese Government and Senate crossbenchers for a legislated right for workers to disconnect from "unreasonable" out-of-hours contact from their employers.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke says that talks about introducing a right to disconnect have shifted away from fines for offending employers and towards an "absolute ban" on them penalising workers who disengage outside working hours.
