A five-member Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) is hearing a union challenge to a BHP requirement that its employees on the Mount Arthur coal mine site in NSW must be vaccinated in order to enter the site. The Full Bench has invited Ai Group and other peak councils to intervene in the proceedings, given the importance of the issues being considered.

On 25 November, the Federal Government introduced its Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 into Parliament.

On 12 November, Ai Group appeared before a Parliamentary inquiry into a Government Bill aimed at ensuring that plaintiffs in class actions receive a fair share of any settlement or award. Ai Group has expressed strong support for the Bill. Ai Group has been working hard to achieve legislative and regulatory reforms to curtail the excessive profits that litigation funders and plaintiff law firms have been earning from class actions at the expense of plaintiffs, businesses and the broader community.

On 22 November, the Australian Labor Party introduced the Fair Work Amendment (Same Job, Same Pay) Bill 2021 into Parliament, as a private member’s Bill. The Bill would require ‘labour hire’ firms to provide pay and conditions to their employees that are at least as favourable as those paid by client businesses to their own employees.

Read all this and more in our latest report on significant workplace relations issues.