Employers have welcomed an Albanese Government promise not to require union deals in order to secure work on Commonwealth-funded construction projects, as it prepares to consult on new procurement standards to stamp out criminality and inappropriate "industrial fixers".
Unions and legal advocates are urging the Albanese Government to extend paid family and domestic violence leave to encompass s-xual and gender-based violence, boost its length, and enable more people to access it to support victim survivors.
The Business Council is urging the Albanese Government to repeal part of its intractable bargaining determination framework, while warning of same-job, same-pay orders that risk "overcompensating" labour hire workers and imposing additional obligations where they are already receiving host rates, in its submission to the Closing Loopholes review.
The Albanese Government will amend the Fair Work Act to fast-track applications by unions and transport operators to win "emergency" supply chain orders from the FWC to raise rates to keep pace with surging fuel prices, driven by the Middle East war.
The Albanese Government is considering scrapping a "disastrous" requirement for the FWC to decide whether workers have been sacked before conciliating dismissal-related general protections claims, as part of its response to the tribunal's ballooning workload.
The NSW Minns Labor Government is closer to winning passage of controversial Workers Compensation amendments designed to rein in claims for psychological injuries, along with a bill making it easier for unions to inspect employers' digital work systems.
The NSW Minns Labor Government has introduced what the Business Council claims is the "most interventionist AI and digital regulation" for employers in the country, while separately reviving a bid to lift the workers' compensation total impairment threshold for psychological injuries.
Victorian employers would need to give employees two weeks' written notice before introducing workplace surveillance under proposed laws that have won in-principle support from the Allan Government, which also this week vowed to offer clearer advice on the use of medicinal cannabis in the workplace.
