The Closing Loopholes Bill is unlikely to reduce reliance on long-term casual employment and will not expose employers to "unnecessary uncertainty", a leading IR law academic says, contradicting barrister Stuart Wood's recent advice to the BCA.
A leading IR academic kicking off a Senate inquiry's hearings into the Albanese Government's Closing Loopholes legislation has recommended passage of changes for "employee-like" gig workers and owner drivers, along with some "improvements".
The process of obtaining an entry permit should be "no more than onerous" than that for a passport unless there are "good grounds" for suspecting the applicant might not be a fit and proper person, according to the Booth-Hamberger review of regulation of registered organisations.
The chair of the ACTU's price gouging inquiry, former ACCC chair Alan Fels, has told a public hearing this is a "missing piece" in Australia's inflation story and there is a lot of resistance to the message that it is being driven by "prices themselves", while the Australia Institute says corporate profits must fall.
The ACTU has ramped up the prosecution of its case that profits rather than wages are fuelling inflation, securing former ACCC chair Alan Fels to conduct a public inquiry into "price gouging" and unfair pricing practices.
An Albanese Government senator has described Amazon's reliance on labour hire workers and independent contractors as the "wild west," and challenged the company's aspiration to be the "best employer on the planet", in a hearing this week.
The Committee for Economic Development of Australia has urged employers to formalise access to flexible work as part of a national effort to address high levels of occupational gender segregation.
Woolworths has told the Senate work and care inquiry that 37.4% of its casuals accepted offers to convert from casual to permanent, which chair Barbara Pocock says is much higher than the committee has otherwise heard.
McDonald's' evidence to the Senate work and care inquiry today raised some "big issues" for the committee to consider, including the extent of its control over franchisees' workplace practices, an absence of sick leave and "unclear" paid parental leave entitlements, according its chair.