The Albanese Government has retreated from proposed mandatory "guardrails" in its national AI policy released today, relying instead on existing regulators to report any legislative gaps to the newly-formed AI Safety Institute.
Unions have doubled down on objections to an Australian Industry Group draft working-from-home clause proposed for the clerks award, claiming it will create a two-tiered system, confound both employers and workers and violates new penalty rates protections.
As the Albanese Government revealed plans for an AI Safety Institute to harness productivity gains and combat "malign uses" of the new technology, a "confronting" report from the FSU champions the need for a digital "just transition" amid concerns about job security and surveillance in the finance sector.
The case billed as the first substantive test of the FWC's new gig economy unfair contracts powers has been quietly binned, after a self-represented Uber driver discontinued it earlier this month.
As a leading employer-clientele lawyer hosed down fears about WFH "chaos" in the wake of the recent Chandler decision, the Greens have introduced legislation giving employees the right to work remotely for at least two days a week unless fulfilling their roles is "impractical or impossible".
A FWC full bench has today rejected a bid by BHP Coal and its OS entities to issue highly-specific, restrictive orders to give effect to July's landmark same-job, same-pay decision for the resource giant's Bowen Basin coal mines, warning that the proposed descriptions of those covered could undermine the scheme's purpose and be "swiftly evaded".
An Uber driver who varied his schedule slightly but worked every weekend until he filed his unfair deactivation claim clearly demonstrated "some form of repetitive pattern" and performed work "on a regular basis", the FWC has ruled.
An Amazon Flex driver's late bid to challenge his deactivation for entering a home can proceed after a FWC full bench weighed the gig company's "confusing and ambiguous" communications and the driver's personal circumstances that included suicidal ideation and a sick wife.
Employers and unions are urging the FWC in its self-initiated test case to insert WFH provisions in the clerks award, but are starkly divided on whether workers should have a right to request, while academics back extending it to all – with protections – to boost equity.
In a case highlighting the "obvious danger" of relying on artificial intelligence for legal advice, the FWC has refused to extend time for a "hopeless" 900-day late dismissal challenge written by and filed on the suggestion of ChatGPT.
