The FWC has made SJSP orders putting WorkPac and Skilled on-hire production operators at a Glencore coal mine in line for substantial pay rises despite accepting it might make labour supply contracts "wholly unviable" and result in job losses.
Workplace Relations Minister Senator Murray Watt will weigh into a gender undervaluation award review case to make it clear the wages of affected workers must not go backwards, after the ASU warned proposed changes to the community and disability sector award might leave some workers up to $700 a week worse off.
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.
