Hospitality, fast food, retail and pharmacy workers stand to lose thousands of dollars per year after the Fair Work Commission’s landmark decision to cut penalty rates on Sundays and public holidays.
The Senate has voted 35-21 to note that its newest member, Victorian Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, was found to have provided untruthful evidence to the Fair Work Commission.
Are penalty rates no longer relevant in the retail industry — and do they cost jobs? Recent research compared two neighbouring states where one raised rates to the other’s level to find the answer.
Cutting penalty rates can be a vote-changer and the looming Fair Work Commission decision is tricky for both sides of politics. So what cards do the parties hold and how might they play them?
The Fair Work Act delivers a much more peculiar system of collective bargaining than many realise. It has outcomes that contradict the hopes and fears of both sides of the IR debate.
A ruling by the Californian Labor Commission that Uber drivers are employees, not individual contractors, might have much wider implications for the ride-sharing group.
Amid the ongoing debate over the future of penalty rates, a subtle but important issue also deserves to be examined: their impact on Australia’s “cash economy”. The Fair Work Commission is currently reviewing…
The government is proposing amendments to the Fair Work Act, including to the operation of “individual flexibility arrangements” (IFAs). The amendments are attracting a lot of attention, including from…
When should a young person start getting paid as an adult? It depends on where the money is coming from, according to current government policy - policy that is sending conflicting messages about the true…
Over the course of the last few months, industrial relations has once again become a major issue on the national political agenda. Allegations of union corruption, uncompetitive wage deals, inflexible…
With a major review of workplace awards underway, the Federal Government has asked the Fair Work Commission to consider whether penalty rates and other minimum conditions are still relevant. In this Viewpoints…
Social media presents many challenges for the world of work. One is the potential for employees’ online comments when off-duty to become a fertile source of evidence for allegations of misconduct and grounds…
The response to legal changes that allow employees being bullied at work to apply to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) for an order to make the behaviour stop has already attracted the predictable criticism…
The Fair Work Commission’s recent wage review may have struck an increased pay deal for low-paid workers but its decision overlooks the growth of a worrying new divide in the Australian workforce. With…