Awards do not adequately cover visual artists and the "preferable solution" is for the FWC to create a new award, the ACTU says in its submission to the modern awards review, while also recommending the Government extend the Closing Loopholes Bill's "employee-like" definition to non-digital platform workers.
The FWC has today launched the next stage of its gender pay equity research, in which it will examine a dozen awards covering highly-feminised sectors to uncover indicators of gender-based undervaluation of minimum rates, ahead of the 2023-24 annual wage review.
University research commissioned by the FWC has identified 29 "large, highly feminised" and probably undervalued occupations covered by 13 modern awards that it might spotlight in the current annual wage review, in response to the Secure Jobs' imperative to address unequal remuneration and gender undervaluation in minimum rates of pay.
The FWC will next Tuesday hear responses to its draft timetable for reviewing modern awards to update job security provisions, address work & care issues, weigh whether it can make them easier to use; and consider coverage of the arts and culture sector.
A FWC full bench has rejected a farmworker's bid to scrap casual overtime award rates she claims prompted an employer to sideline her during a peak harvest period because she reached the maximum ordinary hours.
Interested parties have until June 16 to respond to a FWC bench's proposal to amend model award terms to highlight the two "alternative and parallel avenues" now available to resolve disputes over flexible work and unpaid parental leave requests.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has played down the significance of FWC president Adam Hatcher questioning whether a perceived big increase in the minimum wage could contribute to further increases in interest rates.
A senior Treasury Department official says the Federal Budget's forecast that inflation will drop back to 2% to 3% by mid-2025 assumes the FWC will make a minimum wage ruling that "broadly proxies" last year's increases.
The AiG says the FWC should take into account the Budget's substantial cost-of-living relief for the low-paid in granting an increase no higher than 3.8% in this year's minimum wage case, while the Albanese Government says there are "no signs" of a wage-price spiral and reiterates its view that the real wages of low-paid workers should not "go backwards".
The Catholic Council for Employment Relations is calling for a 7.2% boost to the minimum wage and the rates of many award-reliant workers to help close the poverty gap by 2030, arguing the FWC wrongly rejected its stance last year on what constitutes a safety net.
