Legal Insights
It is now over a decade since the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act) came into operation.
Over that period, we have seen the rise of general protection claims accompanied by the decline of enterprise bargaining – and, famously, the stagnation of wages growth.
The Albanese Government came to power on a platform that included ‘getting wages moving’.
The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 was passed through the Parliament on December 2 2022. After a rushed but intense debate, we can now see exactly how the law will change in 2023, though many of the intended and unintended implications of the legislation are yet to play out.
There are many topics covered in the over 200 pages of the amending legislation. Councils need to be aware of the main themes of the amendments and how these changes, which are the most fundamental in over ten years, will affect their employment and industrial relations issues.
The legislation inserts provisions into the FW Act that will prohibit pay secrecy to help address the gender pay gap. These are designed to bring the gender pay gap into the open, thus making it more likely that the gap will be shamed out of existence.
Councils that utilise executive contracts requiring employees to keep the contents of their contracts confidential and would...
By MELISSA GOLDIN President Donald Trump made myriad false and misleading claims during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, many of which he has repeated frequently thro...