The UK Government is considering introducing reforms to stop employers using labour-hire arrangements to short-change women, as part of a suite of changes aimed at ending workplace pay discrimination.
The first public policy changes to boost workers' power in more than 30 years - under the Albanese Government - have coincided with an increase in nominal and real wages and a rise in workers' share of the fruits of the economy, according to the Centre for Future Work's David Peetz.
Ahead of the May 3 poll, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is supporting a real pay increase in this year's minimum wage case, going further than his 2022 election call for the FWC to ensure workers' pay not "go backwards".
The FWC has refused to confine same-job, same-pay orders at a BHP coal mine to haul truck drivers, because the site's industrial instruments do not use the term and on-hire employees perform various other roles.
A FWC presidential member has clarified the Commission's "global" approach to the BOOT and warned that agreements that pay only slightly above-award will attract greater scrutiny, in rejecting a West Australian coffee chain's proposed agreement.
Growth in private sector rates of pay is continuing to ease, falling from 3.6% a year in trend terms to 3.3%, while public sector growth has also dropped, according to the ABS.
The FAAA says an "in-principle" agreement with Qantas to pay on-hire cabin crew the same as their directly engaged colleagues will be "life changing", but while the Flying Kangaroo has committed to backpaying the difference to November last year it is apparently unable to indicate when it might hit workers' pockets.
A FWC expert panel has decided to phase in work value pay rises for aged care nurses over three tranches from March next year to August 2026, rejecting a Federal Government call to spread it over four instalments between next July and October 2027, while its decision on classification structures has disappointed the ANMF.
The FWC has refused to approve a Subway franchisee's proposed deal designed to replace a zombie agreement, finding it not genuinely agreed because the employer failed to adequately explain which allowances would be absorbed into the rate of pay, and that penalty and minimum rates would freeze for the life of the agreement.
