FWC-ordered minimum wage increases play a "critical role" in "reducing entrenched, intersectional wage inequality" for Aboriginal workers, who are more likely to be award-reliant, the Centre for Indigenous People and Work says in what is likely the first annual wage review submission to focus solely on First Nations workers.
The Albanese Government has again kept its election promise to urge the FWC's Annual Wage Review bench to order real wage increases for award-reliant and minimum wage workers that keep pace with the cost of living.
The ACTU is seeking a 5% rise in award rates and the federal minimum wage to keep pace with cost-of-living pressures "that have gotten a lot tougher" with the fuel price rises from the Middle East war and interest rate hikes.
The FWC has delivered on its vow to expeditiously insert a far broader delegates' rights term in all awards in response to a full court last month finding its initial attempt "impermissibly confined", a judgment that prompted the Commission to thank parties for their patience because of resultant delays to approval of agreements.
A FWC full bench has approved two major infrastructure deals after receiving undertakings addressing its concerns about delegates' rights clauses in the wake of last month's full Federal Court judgment upending restrictive provisions the tribunal itself inserted in nine awards.
A FWC full bench has slightly altered the issues it will consider in its review of award part-time provisions after considering submissions and is seeking further feedback this month on the scope of a research proposal.
The UWU is calling on the Albanese Government to step in to "preserve the stability" of a 15% funded pay rise for agreement-covered early childhood education and care workers and avoid a possible pay cut, after a FWC expert panel rejected calls to "front load" gender undervaluation increases to the award minimum rates.
Unions have doubled down on objections to an Australian Industry Group draft working-from-home clause proposed for the clerks award, claiming it will create a two-tiered system, confound both employers and workers and violates new penalty rates protections.
The NSW IRC is today livestreaming the first day of a lengthy hearing to determine a work value claim on behalf of public hospital doctors seeking to bridge an alleged 30% pay gap, in what their union says is the biggest case in the tribunal's history.
