A senior RBA employee appealing a failed backpay claim has also now had his bid for suppression of significant details of the FWC's decision rejected by a presidential member who observed that such applications should not be used to "qualify or recast" the tribunal's reasoning.
Employers have described today's FWC decision to abolish junior rates for 18 to 20-year-olds as "disappointing" and a "financial blow", as the tribunal conceded the likelihood of a negative effect on employment of workers as businesses adjust to increased labour costs.
Legislation to respond to the transport fuel price crisis by enabling the FWC to fast-track road transport contractual chain order applications to lift rates for truck drivers has passed federal parliament late today.
A café owner who kissed a married 23-year-old employee on the mouth as she washed dishes has been ordered to pay $90,000 in damages and penalties, in the first concluded workplace s-xual harassment case under 2023 amendments to the Fair Work Act.
The scope of "same-job, same-pay" orders should replicate the host deal's, according to an employment and IR barrister who is urging the Albanese Government to plug a "leaking bucket", following a full court finding that the FWC should have confined its orders to a more limited cohort of on-hire workers at a Hunter Valley coal mine.
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.
Peak employer body ACCI will seek a 3.5% rise in the Annual Wage Review 2026 after chief executive Andrew McKellar described the ACTU's 5% claim as "self-defeating".
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.
