Transport Workers’ Union national secretary Michael Kaine said an independent body was needed to examine dependent work and enforce new minimum standards for people missing out on a range of workplace safeguards due to their classification as independent contractors.
“Our laws are hopelessly outdated. Gig behemoths are running rings around an ancient system,” said Mr Kaine,who will be among union leaders meeting federal parliamentarians this week to discuss supply-chain issues exposed by the coronavirus pandemic and summer floods that have left many supermarket shelves bare.
The alliance’s proposal comes more than a year afterLabor pledged to extend the remit of the Fair Work Commission to “employee-like” forms of work,intended to include food delivery riders and other gig economy workers,if it won the federal election.
Labor’s industrial relations spokesman,Tony Burke,said the proposal would give the independent umpire greater power and flexibility to set minimum pay,conditions and safety standards to avoid worker exploitation.
“Australians want the convenience of the gig economy but they don’t want the people on the other end of the app getting ripped off or dying on our roads,” he said.
While broadly supportive of Labor’s position,the unions are proposing an independent body other than the Fair Work Commission to arbitrate the rights of gig workers and others deemed independent contractors.
A spokesman for Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash said businesses in the gig economy must adhere to all applicable laws and that the Coalition had made it unlawful to misrepresent an employment relationship by treating someone as a contractor rather than an employee.