Australia's regulation of precarious workers is "world-leading" and we arguably have "the most progressive industrial relations legislation on the planet", but academics need to rebuild the IR discipline to address its erosion and the rise of human resource management, according to UNSW's Michael Quinlan.
Employment law experts are urging employers to tread carefully in dealing with workers' increasing use of AI to make flexibility requests, respond to investigations and lodge complaints.
CFMEU construction division administrator Mark Irving last year "counselled" then Victorian branch secretary Zach Smith for his "serious error of judgement" in permitting an organiser to meet with underworld figure and "fixer" Mick Gatto, after FWC general manager raised concerns.
NSW Parliament has passed, after accepting amendments, laws to protect the "safety and dignity of workers in the digital age" in part by requiring businesses to help unions inspect their algorithmic systems, with the Minns Government calling for its "leadership" in regulating AI to be extended nationally.
Employment law experts say psychosocial hazards are posing a bigger than expected compliance risk, warning employers to "integrate HR with WHS" to avoid creating unintended safety issues.
The FWC has found that a major warehouse operator did not genuinely make a worker redundant, because it failed to discuss redeployment opportunities with her, including 18 jobs it had vacant at the time of her dismissal.
A court has refused to lift a short-term contractor's unpaid suspension while he runs an adverse action case against an employer that declined to make him permanent, finding incompetence might "at best" be to blame for its investigation delays, while any harm to his reputation is "self-inflicted".
A small business and its owner have been hit with fines, compensation and damages totalling more than $300,000 after the "deplorable" exploitation of a young worker with an intellectual disability who went almost two years without being paid.
The CFMEU construction division administration's former investigator says he stands by his findings critical of the Victorian Government's management of its Big Build program, despite accepting administrator Mark Irving's direction to remove them from a report into corruption in the Victorian branch.
