Employment Law updates - FED

As employment lawyers would be well aware, employment law updates have been more frequent over the past few years than in any other area of law. The By Lawyers Employment Law publication has been regularly updated since December 2022 to reflect the staged commencement of various changes under federal legislation including:

• Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022
• The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023
• Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024

The Fair Work Commission has also implemented new rules to reflect these legislative changes. To ensure coherence and consistency following all these employment law updates, the Employment Law matter plans and commentary have recently been reviewed by our author and our in-house legal editorial team. Topics covered in the commentary that have been amended and reviewed because of the various employment law updates include:

• The Overview including the objects of the Fair Work Act;
• Equal remuneration requirements;
• Prohibitions on pay secrecy;
• Anti-discrimination and special measures;
• Prohibiting sexual harassment in connection with work;
• Flexible work arrangements;
• Extensions of unpaid parental leave;
• Small business redundancy;
• Regulating labour hire arrangements - fixed term contracts and labour hire orders;
• Added protection against discrimination under the National Employment Standards, especially concerning family violence;
• The definition of casual employee;
• Casual conversion; and
• Unfair contracts.

See the following By Lawyers News and Updates posts for more details of the changes:

• Family and domestic violence leave - FED
• Sexual harassment - FED
• Paid parental leave - FED
• Employment Law - FED
• Employment Law - FED
• Domestic violence leave - FED
• Fixed term employment contracts - FED
• Closing Loopholes - FED
• New FWC rules - FED 

The By Lawyers Employment law publication is up to date with all changes. Legislative amendments impacting various aspects of enterprise agreements are largely beyond the scope of the publication. Relevant cases have also been added to 101 Employment Law Answers in the Reference Materials folder on the matter plan, including Feldschuh v Strong Room Technology Pty Ltd [2024] FWCFB 254, in which the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) held that a company director was not also an employee.