Today’s a good day for workers.
Major parts of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay laws come into effect today.
These new laws provide additional rights to workers and were past by the Albanese federal government last year after union members called for better rights at work.
Here’s what the new laws mean from today:
- Changes to agreement making including increased access to multi-employer bargaining through: single interest bargaining, supportive bargaining and cooperative bargaining.
- Extending unpaid parental leave, including providing powers to the Fair Work Commission to determine dispute.
- Strengthening powers of the Fair Work Commission to handle disputes about employee applications for flexible work arrangements.
- Improving the Better Off Overall Test for agreements.
Ultimately these laws make it easier to bargain collectively for better pay and more secure jobs. As unions, this will help us negotiate higher wages, which is more important than ever amidst a cost-of-living crisis.
The laws are not a magic wand to fix close to a decade of wage stagnation overseen by the previous federal government.
But they are an important step towards rebalancing our industrial system and ensuring workers have a fair go.
The best way to get the best outcome from these new laws is joining your union – or getting active in your union – to bargain for better pay and conditions.
There’s also more work to be done on Australia’s industrial laws to close loopholes used by employers to undercut pay and conditions and keep workers in insecure jobs.
Watch this space! Unions will be pushing for further legislative reform to ensure all workers are treated fairly at work.
