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.
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.
A labour law academic has suggested it is time to get creative with awards covering highly feminised industries and move on from the idea of a mere safety net, contrasting the 1960s professional engineers case with the current plight of early childhood education and care workers.
The FWC is seeking feedback by March 12 on the possible incorporation into modern awards of key recommendations of the recent Senate work and care inquiry, including rights to work from home and to disconnect from the workplace.
The ACTU says the FWC should conduct a "comprehensive assessment" of gender-based undervaluation of work, rather than seek to finalise the issue in this year's minimum wage review.
FWC President Adam Hatcher has given the BCA another fortnight to make a compliant submission to the awards review after it filed a proposal "directly contrary" to the scope of the project.
Awards do not adequately cover visual artists and the "preferable solution" is for the FWC to create a new award, the ACTU says in its submission to the modern awards review, while also recommending the Government extend the Closing Loopholes Bill's "employee-like" definition to non-digital platform workers.
The FWC has today launched the next stage of its gender pay equity research, in which it will examine a dozen awards covering highly-feminised sectors to uncover indicators of gender-based undervaluation of minimum rates, ahead of the 2023-24 annual wage review.
University research commissioned by the FWC has identified 29 "large, highly feminised" and probably undervalued occupations covered by 13 modern awards that it might spotlight in the current annual wage review, in response to the Secure Jobs' imperative to address unequal remuneration and gender undervaluation in minimum rates of pay.
The RBA says several new early indicators it has developed in-house are helping it to build a "fuller view" of wage movements ahead of the release of official figures.
