In his press club speech on 31 August 2023, just days before the public release of the Closing Loopholes Bill, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations the Hon Tony Burke MP described the problem of the labour hire loophole as follows:
“But if you have an enterprise agreement in place, the labour hire loophole
So, the business needs to cut costs. It might want to outsource. Redundancies look inevitable. But you need to be sure: so here comes a high-priced management consultant.
Things are getting expensive. Everything is on the table. There’s an enterprise agreement or two driving costs. You could get maintenance cheaper elsewhere. Or how about the
The High Court of Australia’s decision in the Qantas outsourcing case[1] has been widely reported. But both the scope of the decision and the key takeaway have potentially been misunderstood.
How do you (dis)prove a negative presumption about your reasons?
The real issue in this case, as in most adverse action cases, was why
This instalment of our series on the Closing Loopholes Bill considers new measures aimed squarely at union empowerment.
The Bill mandates rights for union workplace delegates that must be included in all Modern Awards and future enterprise agreements. As a minimum, these rights will be to:
The use of contracting arrangements is widespread; however, around the world, we are seeing trends suggesting this type of work arrangement may become more restricted, higher cost or higher risk to companies in the future. We asked several partners to share their insights on what’s changing for companies that use contractors and what the key
Anything but casual…
In the first of our series examining the Closing Loopholes Bill introduced into Parliament yesterday, we look at the new measures for casual employment.
The Orwellian title of the Closing Loopholes Bill foreshadows its intentions: casual employment is double-plus-ungood. Premised on the doublethink notion that casual employment is a bad moon on
Some of this is guesswork, and the extent of what’s coming is uncertain, but:
In part three of our four-part series on Reductions in Force in Asia Pacific, we looked at severance costs and benefits, key timing challenges and consultation with employees or employee representatives.
In this final instalment of our series, we’ll cover the last three things that we recommend multinational employers consider: (#8) consideration of expats, (#9)
In a previous blog, we summarised the recent case of Groff v. Dejoy, where the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously clarified the undue hardship standard under Title VII, a federal law in the United States that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, and national origin.
The decision is in line with
In part two of our series on reductions in force in the Asia Pacific, we addressed the importance of restructuring rationale, employee selection and redeployment, and consultation with employees or employee representatives. In part three, we’ll cover the next three issues we recommend multinational employers consider: (#5) severance costs and benefits, (#6) timing challenges, and