Federal Government rushes through Fair Work reforms to ease FWC backlog

The Federal Government will amend the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act) to support more efficient processes within the Fair Work Commission (FWC).

The FWC will be able to refer general protections dismissal or unlawful termination disputes to conciliation or mediation, without first needing to resolve questions of jurisdiction around whether the applicant was in fact dismissed or terminated.

FWC staff will be able to conduct conferences and issue certificates in relation to general protections dismissal and unlawful termination disputes in the same way as they can with unfair dismissal claims.

The FWC will be able to dismiss unfair deactivation and unfair termination claims that are frivolous, vexatious or have no reasonable prospects of success. A Full Bench of the FWC can then make an order preventing a person who has had their application dismissed on that basis from making further specified applications without permission from the FWC.

The FWC will be able to determine certain contested matters ‘on the papers’ (without a conference or hearing) if the parties agree and a FWC member considers the matter can be adequately determined in that way.

Other unrelated measures include:

The FW Act prohibition on discrimination against an employer will not apply where the Commonwealth preferences employers in supply or service contracts who are covered by an enterprise agreement (or a type of enterprise agreement), or who are covered by an enterprise agreement that covers a union.
The process for supported bargaining authorisations will be streamlined where the FWC has made an authorisation for the same or substantially the same group of employees and employers.
An income threshold for regulated road transport contractors will apply to access unfair termination and unfair contract protections. Only road transport contractors earning below the new threshold will be able to access these protections.

Mineral processing facility sentenced for lead-risk work failures
At a time when Australia is transitioning to an updated Workplace Exposure Standard, a Victorian mineral processing facility was fined $10,000 last week for its failure to arrange for biological monitoring ...