Sky News
Diego Franco
The Sydney Morning Herald
Michael Keane
. While this sort of work can mean more flexibility and freedom, usually gig economy workers are independent contractors rather than employees. The National Employment Standards don’t cover independent contractors which means they don’t get stuff like sick leave or annual leave.
As reported by Newscorp publications, the potential change would see the Fair Work Commission include a category of people who are “employee like”.
“If you are ’employee like’ to the extent that you’re like an employee, the Fair Work Commission can determine what are the appropriate minimum standards for those workers,” Burke told .
BRB, just wrapping my head around the first bit of that sentence.
Some essential context for Burke’s comments: a Fair Work Commission ruling on Wednesday. The ruling essentially decided that companies are allowed to keep defining workers like food delivery riders as “independent contractors” instead of employees.
It came after Deliveroo appealed a previous ruling by the FWC. It’d originally found , a rider for the company, should be classified as an employee and protected from unfair dismissal, as per . But the FWC then overturned that ruling based on Franco’s Deliveroo contract.
Transport Workers Union national secretary criticised the ruling.
“This finding allows gig behemoths to carefully adjust the wording in their contracts to avoid all accountability towards worker safety and rights, while exercising high control over workers who have no ability to negotiate,” he said.
Burke told Sky News while the FWC found that the treatment of Franco was “unjust”, he still wasn’t technically an employee.
“Therefore, there’s nothing they can do”.
So it makes sense that the Albanese Government is now looking into potential ways to reform the gig economy system.
“Effectively I don’t want Australia to be a country where you have to rely on tips to be able to make ends meet,” Burke said.
In short, the change would hopefully see gig economy workers included in that “employee like” category. What exactly those minimum workplace standards would be are unclear ATM, but fingers crossed for things like sick leave or minimum pay. You know, the very basic things every worker deserves.
A spokesperson for Deliveroo gave a statement to Sky News.
According to Sky, the Albanese government is chatting to the business sector about the potential new policy.
Hopefully at the very least we’ll see increased protections for the many, many workers sweating it out in the gig economy.
“It’s time now to move on from the topic of status and instead look at developing the right national reform framework to allow us to give riders the security and benefits they deserve alongside the unprecedented freedoms that on-demand work offers,” they said.
The post The Albanese Govt Is Looking At A Big Potential Shake Up For Gig Economy Workers appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
