A court has refused to grant a self-represented on-hire worker a second extension of time to pursue his "confusing" adverse action case, finding too many gaps in his explanation for a 10-week delay during which he badgered the FWC to arbitrate the matter and travelled overseas.
BHP has accused the Albanese Government of "blatantly" seeking to undermine the FWC's independent decision-making by declaring the company's Operations Services internal labour hire arm a key target of the Closing Loopholes legislation.
Resources employer group AREEA says the Loopholes Bill's labour hire provisions lack a proper exemption for specialist contractors and will kill off the use of on-hire workers, despite Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke's assurances that the drafting would take "very full account" of its concerns.
Ahead of its appearance tomorrow before the Senate inquiry into the Closing Loopholes Bill, the United Workers Union has urged the Albanese Government to amend the "same-job, same-pay" reforms in the legislation to make them "more efficient and sensible", while it has also warned that thousands of workers won't benefit because the process is too dependent on running cases in the FWC.
The FWC will probe potential "wider-scale abuse" of agreement-making under the Fair Work Act after quashing the approval of a Chevron contractor's labour hire deal made with six "employees" in a sham process "entirely lacking in authenticity and moral authority".
A leading labour law academic says the drafting of the Albanese Government's latest swathe of IR changes is "complex" but the reformed approach to defining an employee is "really significant" and new labour hire provisions are likely to prevent employers from evading agreements via outsourcing.
The Albanese Government's legislative changes to "close the labour hire loophole" will rely on aggrieved parties seeking orders from the FWC to ensure on-hire workers are paid the same rates as those in the host employer's enterprise agreement.
A labour hire company that sought to convince a FWC full bench to grant a four-year extension to its 2007 zombie deal due to the pressures of the pandemic and economic conditions, including its workers' "wage demands", has won just an extra seven months.
Victoria's Labour Hire Authority is prosecuting a labour hire company for allegedly sourcing farm workers through unlicensed suppliers, as part of a crackdown on the horticulture and farm sectors.