The ‘new’ world of work and its regulation in historical context

From the late 1970s Australia and many other countries experienced a significant shift in work arrangements including the growth of temporary and part-time jobs, agency work/labour hire, multiple jobholding and contracting/self-employment and gig/platform work. There was also a growing use of foreign workers holding temporary or restricted visas, with the vast majority undertaking temporary work in agriculture, food-delivery and an array of other jobs. Commensurate with the increase in precarious work, there was a relative decline in the proportion of the workforce holding nominally ongoing employment. Many ongoing jobs were also rendered more insecure by repeated rounds of downsizing, privatisation, outsourcing and increased reliance on global supply chains. This significant shift in work arrangements was documented and its effects on working conditions analysed by a growing body of government reports and published research (see for example Kalleberg Reference Kalleberg2009: Lewchuk Reference Lewchuk2017; Rosewarne Reference Rosewarne2010; Stanford Reference Stanford2017). David Weil (Reference Weil2014) coined the term ‘fissured workplace’, while in the late 1990s/early 2000s, it was commonly referred to in academic/policy conferences as the new world of work. More recently gig/platform work has attracted a large literature. Discussion of the digital economy, which often fails to make sufficient links to the broader category of precarious work, or that digitalisation (especially the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence), is also having profound impacts on non-precarious work. To varying degrees these changes undermined existing regulatory regimes – industrial relations, occupational health and safety (OHS) and workers’ compensation/social security – which were largely predicated on waged-employment and which presumed (at least in rich countries) that workers had ongoing employment (see for example, Stewart and Stanford, Reference Stewart and Stanford2017). The impact of these changes was magnified by the rise of neoliberalism which reshaped an array of economic and other policies affecting work (privatisation and outsourcing being but two examples) as well as direct changes to industrial relations laws, all of which decentralised if not actively de-collectivised, the determination of wages and working conditions in ways that disadvantaged unions and the workers they sought to represent.

As was increasingly acknowledged (albeit mainly in passing), after 2010 precarious work was not new and far from constituting a new world of work, it could be more accurately as a re-emergence (Bennett Reference Bennett1994; Kalleberg Reference Kalleberg2009; Quinlan Reference Quinlan2012; Quinlan et al Reference Quinlan, Mayhew and Bohle2001a). Viewed over a longer time frame, the long-term post-war boom (1945–1975), which had been marked by widespread, relatively secure employment (in rich countries at least), was the aberration, unlike precarious/non-standard work which prevailed for over a century before that time and which had been a major impetus for an earlier wave of campaigns and regulatory protection. Employment of limited tenure/security – including regular use of the term ‘precarious employment’ or variants of it – was the norm for the majority of workers in the old, industrialised countries of western Europe, North America and Australasia from the early 19^th century (and in some cases long before) up until world war two, although it had begun to decline from the early 20^th century. The period 1870–1930 (somewhat longer in the USA), and more especially 1880–1920, witnessed substantial worker mobilisation in North America, Western Europe and Australasia evident in unions and political parties (such as the Labor Party in Australia and the Social Democrat Party in Sweden). In turn that led to intense struggles (sharpened by the 1890s depression), the introduction of raft of protective labour legislation and the beginnings of the welfare state (such as old-age pensions). The legislative architecture was trifurcated into three realms, industrial relations laws regulating union recognition, bargaining/standard setting and setting legally enforceable minimum wages; laws regulating occupational health and safety (OHS) in factories, mines, construction sites and other workplaces (though not all); and laws affording compensation for employees injured or (to a lesser extent) experiencing disease in the course of their employment (again worker coverage and entitlements were initially quite restricted but slowly expanded).

The exploitative and hazardous nature of precarious employment – extensively documented by unions and allied community movements such as Anti-Sweating Leagues, government inquiries, the press and medical journals like The Lancet – was a focal point of these struggles and regulatory reforms. To give but one example sweating referred to work that entailed very long hours for payment so low that it barely sustained a worker or their family. The vast majority were employed casually/irregularly (including, e.g., wharf labourers/dockers engaged on a daily basis under the ‘bull’ system – picked by overseers); worked in casual construction or harvest gangs under an intermediary gang master); were engaged on fixed contracts (voyages in the case of seamen); women, immigrants and children in small workshops (like boot and clothing workshops from which the phrase ‘sweatshop’ is derived) or working from home (including family groups making up clothes, packaging cigars and the like) under a subcontracting arrangement squeezed by ‘middle-men’. The resulting destitution/poverty, unhygienic living/working conditions, poor education, inadequate diet and injuries and illnesses, were extensively documented (Quinlan et al Reference Quinlan, Mayhew and Bohle2001b; Quinlan Reference Quinlan2013a Reference Quinlan2013b). Cramped unhygienic living conditions in tenements and irregular pay (discouraging reporting) were conducive to the spread of infectious disease. Indeed, it was the public health risks to the wider community (such as customers including the rich, buying infected clothing) that helped secure government intervention (Gregson and Quinlan Reference Gregson and Quinlan2020).

The primary drivers of change were unions, Anti-Sweating Leagues and labourist politicians, and their efforts resulted in compulsory registration of factories and workshops (to capture small or shifting workplaces evading standards), listing and limits on outworkers per employer, more stringent hygiene and safety laws/enforcement (including the first female factory inspectors), bans on home-work and child labour in some jurisdictions, setting minimum wages and enhancing the ability of unions to implement collective determination of wages and working conditions. In 1896 Victoria became the second jurisdiction after New Zealand to set minimum wages, initially confined to six designated sweated trades (including baking, boot-making and clothing manufacturing) although coverage rapidly spread. By the early 1900s, compulsory arbitration laws were enacted at state and federal level in Australia; these gave unions recognition, provided a strong incentive for employers to deal with unions (because tribunals could still decide claims in their absence), and established legally enforceable awards, setting pay rates, hours and an increasing array of other conditions, such as shift penalties, casual loadings, leave entitlements, meal allowances, notice periods, lay-off provisions (like last in first out or LIFO) and call-back times. Awards covered even the most vulnerable employees (though not the self-employed) and setting minimum rates discouraged a number of exploitative practices, while casual loadings and even direct limits on the number of casuals, placed some restrictions on precarious employment (Anderson and Quinlan Reference Anderson and Quinlan2008). A number of awards such as those applying to clothing included specific clauses/provisions regulating outwork. Union access to the workplace meant they also took an active role in detecting and dealing with under-payment in industries like construction, although there were also arbitration inspectorates policing awards. In the early 1900s, UK and US government representatives visited Australia and New Zealand, determining that there was no evidence that minimum wages had resulted in job losses but it had caused a reduction in child labour (Anderson and Quinlan Reference Anderson and Quinlan2008).

Three critical points need to be made because they are directly relevant to current policy debates discussed later. First, in Australia and other older rich countries, industrial relations, OHS and workers’ compensation laws all impacted on precarious employment and its OHS effects but protection was, with few exceptions, confined to employees. Secondly, industrial relations laws setting minimum wages and limiting hours were pivotal because they set a floor of conditions upon which other protections could build. The requirement to register/license particular employers/workplaces under Factory Acts was also important – something that was lost sight of when OHS laws were reformed in the 1980s and these requirements were dispensed with. Thirdly, the introduction of compulsory arbitration in Australia was part of a trinity of federal measures, the other two being immigration restriction (White Australia) and protectionism via tariffs and subsequent laws such as the Navigation Act requiring local crewing on ships (Kirkby et al Reference Kirkby, Monk and Ostapenko2023). The last, which aimed to broaden the economic and employment base, was given a boost by both world wars and helped Australia avoid the vulnerability of purely rural/resource-based economies like Argentina.

The emergence of what was seen as standard ongoing employment accelerated during the war and long post-war boom, and the socio-political environment was marked by Keynesian full employment and other macroeconomic policies, a significant strengthening of the welfare state, and the related enhanced influence of trade unions. But it still involved struggle. For example, on the docks, the Waterside Workers Federation (now part of the Maritime Union) successfully campaigned for permanency in the 1950s; building unions also mounted a permanency campaign in the 1960s and 1970s, which ultimately secured redundancy/retrenchment funds and portable long service leave provisions (that spread to some other precarious workers, such as cleaners). The growth of standard employment only really affected the old industrialised countries, joined by a few others including Japan and South Korea (though both these countries retained extensive labour contracting). Moreover, during these decades, insecure and precarious work did not disappear even if ‘standard’ ongoing work was viewed as the norm. Precarious work, like casual/temporary employment and self-employed subcontracting, remained common in industries such as retailing, food-processing and harvest work. For most women, precarious work remained the norm and some informal work (cash-in-hand payment or the ‘black economy’) also existed in rich countries. From the mid-1970s this regime began to unravel with the rise of neoliberalism/ abandonment of Keynesianism and a renewed attack by capital on organised labour which spread over time. Under neoliberalism the interventionist protectionist role of government was attacked with a raft of policies (including tariff-cuts/free-trade agreements,Footnote ¹ the abandonment of full-employment as a policy priority, competitive tendering, privatisation and outsourcing, as well as increased use of migrant workers especially those on temporary visas), and a general philosophy which assumed that maximising private sector influence in the economy would lead to greater wealth and efficiency. Changes in corporate business and work practices contributed to the change including offshoring manufacturing and some services (call centres, heavy aircraft maintenance to name but two examples) to lower wage countries and consequent dependence on often elaborate supply chains. The mantra of deregulation including oft-repeated claims that flexibility, innovation and efficiency were being stymied by too much regulatory red-tape, dominated policy discourse by the 1980s, even though ‘deregulation’ was a misnomer, in the sense that changes amounted less to a removal of regulation than the passage of laws yielding different outcomes. For example, industrial relations laws in Australia were ‘reformed’ to make them less collectivist and more decentralised, resulting in a more complex plethora of contracts, agreements and standards that were generally more favourable to capital, especially big business, and less favourable to workers and unions. The shift also coincided with a growth of precarious work arrangements. Moreover, repeated rounds of restructuring, downsizing and privatisation that resulted in large numbers of workers losing their jobs or being left in a less secure position. The era of universal ‘standard’ work, albeit always exaggerated, ended after around four decades. Viewed in this historical light this era was an abnormal interregnum not the norm. In poor to middle-income countries, including those that rapidly industrialised, a standard employment model never emerged. Indeed, in many countries such as Brazil, the informal economy and informal work – work not intrinsically illegal in nature but essentially composed of self-employed workers with little if any legal coverage or protection – grew. Further, the informal sector also grew in rich countries, seemingly facilitated by the greater capacity to disguise its existence where precarious work was common, and where there were often large numbers of especially vulnerable workers, such as refugees and undocumented and short-term visa migrants.

Recognition of the fundamental shifts occurring in the labour market mostly began in the 1990s and was widely accepted in the research literature and policy debates by the mid to late 2000s. As already indicated, the growth of precarious and insecure work was largely seen as a new development, not a re-emergence or return to the norm of earlier periods of capitalism. There was nothing new about temporary employment or self-employed subcontractors – they were centuries-old arrangements. Others entailed an upsized, bureaucratised and more coordinated iteration of an old idea, with third party employers (gang-bosses, middlemen and serangs in the merchant marine), being succeeded by labour-hire firms, temp agencies and crewing agencies (merchant marine). In addition to the degree of organisation and global nature of some agencies, what was novel was that while contracting out to agency labour had initially been driven by corporations/host employers looking for cheaper labour options keen to increase their business, agencies themselves became an additional driver promoting the contracting out of services. Similarly, platform work or Uber-style arrangements are essentially a form of subcontracting but one digitally enabled so that work is distributed/engagements made via an app or laptop using an algorithm, and where work performance/surveillance can also occur. This permitted a degree of control that was historically a major limitation in using self-employed subcontractors, especially when the work was performed remotely. It has facilitated new services, such as widespread delivery of meals while simultaneously avoiding all manner of employment protection laws because the workers were designated as self-employed, not employees – the traditional focus of protective standards. Other legal categories have been used to evade labour law including franchise and agency arrangements (Johnstone et al Reference Johnstone, McCrystal, Nossar, Quinlan, Rawling and Riley2012). In addition to the platform economy, digital technologies (mobiles, location tracking and the like) were also used with regard to other workers, especially in transport – both self-employed and employees.

In finishing this section, we turn to the effects of the changes in work arrangements just described. The growth of fissured work (Weil Reference Weil2014) and the shift to more de-collectivist industrial relations had effects that were almost entirely predictable, had anyone looked at the copious evidence pertaining to the late 19^th and early 20^th century described above. Under-payment/wage theft and other failures to meet statutory entitlements (including newer ones like mandatory superannuation contributions) grew significantly, with striking parallels with the past in terms of the most vulnerable groups, such as rural, construction and retail/hospitality workers (Goodwin Reference Goodwin2004). As in the 19^th century, some employers could not even abide by conditions they essentially wrote. The 7-Eleven case, where the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) prosecuted a group of franchisees for unlawful cash-back and flat rate payment schemes and falsifying records, and 7-Eleven itself had to pay $173 m (The Age 11 April 2022), was emblematic that these practices were not confined to small firms and that under-payment was integral to the business model of some franchises (Quinlan and Sheldon Reference Quinlan and Sheldon2011 and see special issue of this journal Minimum Labour Standards and Their Enforcement 22(2) – July 2011 (ELRR, 2011 more generally). Many of the victims of this wage theft were foreign workers on short-term visas. As indicated in the third section below, the number of migrants on temporary visas entering Australia grew substantially from the 1990s. The s457 visa was introduced in 1996 ostensibly to meet short-term skill-shortages being imported under employer nomination (and tied to that employer), while the s417 working tourist visa (introduced in 1975) enabled young people to stay up to two years so long as they undertook specified work (including farm/harvest work). Together with a growing number of foreign students studying in Australia (with some rights to work), the growth of foreign workers on short-term visas was a recipe for hyper-exploitation, exacerbated by the scamming of categories (skill definitions and ‘education’ institutions), by intermediaries, poor regulatory oversight and vulnerability of workers desperate for permanent residency, relying on employer sponsorship for their job and the risk of deportation if this were lost, or students working more than their permitted hours. The result was both frequent exploitation, exposure to unacceptable OHS risks and denial of access to workers’ compensation when injured (Guthrie and Quinlan Reference Guthrie and Quinlan2005; Toh and Quinlan Reference Toh and Quinlan2009). Again, some parallels with workers introduced under contractual indentures in the 19^th century, especially non-Europeans like 60,000 Pacific islanders imported into the Queensland sugar industry, were striking.

More generally, there is now extensive evidence (many hundreds of studies) indicating that the global decline of standard employment and growth of precarious work has had significant effects on OHS, with precarious workers commonly experiencing higher injury rates, poorer physical and mental health including vulnerability to harassment and suicide ideation, and less access to regulatory protections (see for example Johnstone et al Reference Johnstone, Mayhew and Quinlan2000; Quinlan Reference Quinlan2015; Quinlan et al Reference Quinlan, Mayhew and Bohle2001a; LaMontagne et al Reference LaMontagne, Smith, Louie, Quinlan, Shoveller and Ostry2009). Bamford (Reference Bamford2015) found immigrant harvest workers in both the UK and Australia were exposed to hazardous chemicals, something exacerbated by cramped communal living conditions. Underhill and Rimmer (Reference Underhill and Rimmer2016) showed how the vulnerability of itinerant harvest workers undermined their OHS, including their access to regulatory protection, especially after increasing use was made of undocumented immigrants. A growing body of research pointed to the hyper-exploitation (long hours, low pay and being forced to hold multiple jobs) and poor OHS of gig-workers like those engaged in food delivery – a new category of sweated labour although this historical connection is rarely made (Gregson and Quinlan Reference Gregson and Quinlan2020). Subcontracting has also contributed to workplace disasters (Quinlan Reference Quinlan2023) while other research has examined the OHS effects and regulatory challenges of elaborate national and global supply chains (James et al Reference James, Johnstone, Quinlan and Walters2007). In combination with more de-collectivist IR laws (affecting union access for example) the growth of contracting, labour-hire and temporary employment also undermined the effectiveness/reach of OHS legislation, including the activities of health and safety representatives (Quinlan and Johnstone Reference Quinlan and Johnstone2009; Walters et al Reference Walters, Quinlan, Johnstone and Wadsworth2019, 216). The new model OHS laws introduced into Australia (2011–2013) and followed by New Zealand, did include an important change better addressing changing work arrangements inasmuch as they regulated work, workers and persons conducting a business of an undertaking, rather than employees and employers. While markedly superior to the earlier approach (still found elsewhere) the potential to better regulate the new world of work has only been slightly addressed as yet (mainly through codes and guidance material in a few areas). Finally, formal and effective access to workers’ compensation has also diminished because self-employed workers are overwhelmingly excluded while temporary and labour-hire workers have been found to lack knowledge of their entitlements or to fear that making a claim will damage future employment prospects, especially the young and foreign-born workers (Quinlan Reference Quinlan2004; Quinlan and Mayhew Reference Quinlan and Mayhew1999).

Finally, it is important to note that the effects of precarious and insecure work can affect other workers and the wider community. For example, as the number of subcontract drivers (often working at the bottom of multi-tiered contracts) grew in road transport, it became increasingly common for employee-drivers to be paid according to the kilometres-driven resulting in similar pressures on hours worked and on OHS. Commercial pressures including the intense competition as shippers like large supermarkets drove down rates, increased psychosocial risks and had safety consequences for other road-users (Mayhew and Quinlan Reference Mayhew and Quinlan2001; Quinlan Reference Quinlan2001; Quinlan and Wright Reference Quinlan and Wright2008). More generally, the presence of precarious workers could have spill-over workload effects on other workers responsible for their training and supervision and contribute to workplace disorganisation (e.g. communication between employees and contractors. As COVID-19 demonstrated, multiple-jobholding and more crowded households (more common amongst those holding precarious jobs) were conducive to the spread of infectious disease, another echo of the past and a reminder that OHS and public health closely intersect in multiple ways (Quinlan Reference Quinlan2021). In terms of understanding how these shifts in work organisation have affected OHS, one model is arguably especially relevant – the economic pressure, disorganisation and regulatory failure or PDR model – because it explicitly includes regulation (unlike other work organisation and health models) and spill-over effects (Underhill and Quinlan Reference Underhill and Quinlan2024).

Drawing the foregoing together, the following observations can be made. The decline of standard jobs and growth of precarious work after 1975 is most accurately viewed as a return to working arrangements that had prevailed in the 19^th and early 20^th century. There were differences largely in terms of scale, global coordination, changes to transport and communication, and the opportunities to refashion jobs using digital technologies. Some differences, notably digitalisation and changes to transport and communication technologies were important because they facilitated the more efficient task allocation, rewarding and surveillance of self-employed subcontracting arrangements. The consequences of this shift for IR and OHS (not so much workers’ compensation because this was only introduced in most countries in the early 20^th century), now documented by hundreds of studies, echoed the findings of inquiries and research into precarious work during this earlier phase.

While a raft of protective legislation had been introduced since the late 19^th century it focused on the employment relationship not work more broadly defined. Further, some provisions dealing with subcontracting (such as workplace registration) had lapsed while the critical IR laws setting wages and other conditions that set a baseline for working conditions and OHS had been weakened under neoliberal policy mantras. It needs to be acknowledged that the early paradigm focused on wage labour, made sense at the time because the then dominant trend in capitalist work organisation (arguably reinforced by the reforms) was towards congregating wage labour into ever larger organisations/workplaces often using mass-production technologies (in factories, offices and like) where work effort could be subjected to systematic surveillance. While subcontracting/contract work offered advantages, it could not be supervised/controlled except by crude reward incentives. However, elaborate supply chains, faster transport/communications and digital technologies facilitated the close supervision and control of worker outside the traditional employment relationship. Some business models/work arrangement like the Uber-style platform economy were deliberately designed to side-step all protective legislation as were other uses of dependent subcontractors in road transport and the like. Using undocumented workers and the growth of the informal economy had the same effect. The growth of precariously employed employees also weakened existing regulatory regimes due to fewer entitlements under IR laws, and perhaps more importantly, because they were less likely to be unionised and had less knowledge or confidence to access entitlements or assert their rights under OHS and workers’ compensation laws. Finally, the rise of neoliberalism and growth of precarious work weakened unions. In sum, the protective regime and supportive policy settings (notably Keynesian economics), which peaked in old rich countries during the long post-war boom were weakened by not only changes to law and policy but the re-emergence of precarious work, including forms that effectively bypassed existing regulation altogether.

Campaigns and inquiries promoting regulation of precarious work in Australia

Momentum for a legislative and policy rethink focused on industrial relations, emerged only slowly after over three decades of public inquiries into aspects of the problems. As in other countries, by the late 1980s the problems associated with the re-emergence of widespread precarious work were becoming sufficiently evident to evince a growing but generally fragmented set of responses with unions and others pushing for inquiries and regulatory reforms. Government inquiries and campaigns about precarious work and associated changes (including temporary work visa schemes and migration policy) began in Australia in the 1990s with momentum growing over time. Like other countries, inquiries and campaigns were commonly confined to a particular issue and therefore the review process was fragmented, something further complicated by Australia’s federal political structure. The aim of this section is to chart the array of relevant inquiries and campaigns, identify some general trends and selectively focus on several successful campaigns rather than examine each inquiry in depth. To our knowledge such a macro-analysis has never been done before. Most importantly, taken as a whole these inquiries provided evidence and momentum for a more far-reaching overhaul of industrial relations laws that went beyond efforts to restore a more collectivist approach.

One of the first inquiries to consider precarious work and on a global scale, was in response to the unravelling of maritime labour standards built up in the 20^th century. Those seeking to evade these standards in countries with higher standards (Western Europe, North America and Australia), found they could do this by registering shipping in another country with weak or non-enforced standards. A federal inquiry (Commonwealth of Australia 1992) entitled Ships of Shame found evidence of unseaworthy ships, poorly trained and falsely certified crews; deficient safety equipment; beating and abuse of seamen; under-payment (often falsified); inadequate food and poor hygiene facilities; seamen being treated as dispensable; classification societies providing inaccurate information or certifying ships rejected by other societies; careless practices by insurers; and the use of ‘flag states’. The report found commercial pressure was the major factor promoting the use of substandard ships, low-cost crews and unsafe practices.

As noted in The ‘new’ world of work and its regulation in historical context section precarious work remained a feature of some industries even during the post-war boom, including construction, but the extent of subcontracting increased from the 1970s with adverse effects on unionisation, labour standards and OHS that led to a series state and federal government inquiries (for a valuable summary see Sutton Reference Sutton2017). One of the first inquiries was established by the NSW government at the behest of unions in 1979, which, while accepting there were problems, refused to recommend an extension of regulation to contract workers. Unions then had to contend with reports that were openly hostile to their efforts notwithstanding some acknowledgement of OHS problems associated with subcontracting. An inquiry (1989–1991) by the federal government’s neoliberal reform agency – the Industry Commission (precursor to the Productivity Commission) – into high costs on major construction projects promoted self-employed sub-contracting as a ‘panacea’. A NSW Royal Commission (1992) chaired by Roger Gyles into productivity in the building industry concluded that union interference in subcontracting arrangements should be prevented. Similarly, a Productivity Commission inquiry (1999) into Work Arrangements on Large Capital City Building Projects contended self-employment could ‘bid down’ costs. Over the next decade other significant externalities associated with contracting including sham-contracting and widespread tax evasion were identified in a series of inquiries undertaken by the Senate, the Board of Taxation Review and the Cole Royal Commission (2003) into the Building and Construction Industry and the Australian Building and Construction Commission. A House of Representatives Inquiry into independent contracting and labour-hire arrangements identified problems but avoided recommending any strong remedies (Sutton Reference Sutton2017). While inquiries in other States identified the problems commonly associated with contracting unions, most notably the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), secured little traction whilst also having to contend with the growth of labour-hire arrangements and vulnerable foreign workers on short-term visas like s457 and s417 (Sutton Reference Sutton2017). More so than other unions, the CFMEU faced strident neoliberal interests (including government agencies) and other hostile forces which effectively stymied its campaign.

Like building, contracting had been a long-term feature of the mining industry but grew substantially from the 1990s. The use of contractors in the mining industry was addressed in a number of state government inquiries including the Western Australian Prevention of Mining Fatalities Taskforce (1997) and the NSW Mine Safety Review (Wran and McClelland Reference Wran and McClelland2005). Extensive research commissioned by the Mine Safety Advisory Committee as a result of bonus and other issues raised in the NSW Mine Safety Review, identified contracting as a problem in terms of hazardous practices and incident reporting (Shaw et al Reference Shaw, Blewett, Stiller, Cox, Ferguson, Frick and Aickin2007). The growth of contracting including labour-hire was associated with other shifts in work practices, including increasing use of fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) and drive-in-drive-out (DIDO), whereby rather than living in a nearby mining town, workers live remote from the mine, and then, while they are on site, live in barracks (sometimes hot-bedding). In addition to undermining unionism (mining towns are typically a union hub) DIDO was associated with fatigue-related road crashes and FIFO was linked to work/family imbalance (resulting from long periods away), while fatigue and psychosocial hazards including the sexual harassment of female workers on remote sites, were documented by a number of inquiries undertaken in Western Australia (Education and Health Standing Committee 2015; Parker et al Reference Parker, Fruhen, Burton, McQuade, Loveny, Griffin, Page, Chikritzhs, Crock, Jorritsma and Esmond2018; Community Development and Justice Standing Committee 2022). A Queensland report into FIFO and DIDO (Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources Committee 2015) identified similar issues, including the quality of accommodation (including food and hot-bedding), rostering/fatigue and mental health. Safety concerns associated with the growing use of contractors (including labour hire) were prominent following a methane explosion at the Grosvenor coalmine in Queensland in May 2020 where five miners (all labour hire) were seriously burned. The subsequent Board of Inquiry (2021) investigating the incident commissioned a report on the available evidence on the contractor/safety connection and also emphasised concerns in this regard in its report, including regulatory recommendations.

The adverse OHS and labour standard implications of growing use of self-employed subcontractors also drew attention in other industries. The re-emergence of significant home-based work mainly for the fashion sector of the clothing industry and entailing exploitation (wages, hours and OHS) of the predominantly migrant workforce working in multi-tiered subcontracting arrangements was the subject of a number of state and federal government inquiries from the 1990s (see, for example Family and Community Development Committee 2002; Senate Economics References Committee 1996, 1998). There were federal award provisions dealing with outwork (an outcome of the earlier period described in The ‘new’ world of work and its regulation in historical context section) but these were deemed inadequate as were codes of practice introduced in Victoria and NSW following more recent inquiries. The Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) launched a community, industrial and political campaign for mandatory regulatory coverage of outworkers’ wages and hours, OHS protections and workers’ compensation entitlements. This was supported by research indicating they were commonly underpaid, harassed and experienced higher rates of injury than workers doing the same tasks in factories (a declining sector due the abolition of tariffs). As in a number of other countries, the campaign involved community groups like Fairwear, Ethical Clothing Trades Councils and religious bodies such as the Brotherhood of St Laurence. However, unlike other countries this campaign secured passage of the Fair Work Amendment (Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry) Act (2012) by federal parliament, notwithstanding the dominance of neoliberalism in policy circles. This enabled the setting of enforceable minimum wages and conditions for outworkers, addressed supply chain issues via obligations, enabled union access to information and a contractual tracking mechanism so those at the top of the chain could not evade responsibility for breaches in payment. The legislation (along with parallel State legislation) also sought to bridge the divide with OHS and workers’ compensation laws (Nossar, Johnstone, Macklin and Rawling Reference Nossar, Johnstone, Macklin and Rawling2015). Despite reviews, the federal legislation has remained in place.

Following a number of highway blockades by owner-drivers protesting exploitation in the late 1970s, a number of state and federal government reports referred to the impact of commercial pressures on owner-drivers supported by a growing body of research. A NSW government report which took evidence from other jurisdictions (Quinlan Reference Quinlan2001) focused on this issue and made a number of recommendations including the establishment of a ‘safe-rates’ regime for owner drivers (contract determinations for some short-haul owner drivers already operated in NSW). This inquiry occurred in the midst of a concerted community, industrial and political campaign coordinated by the Transport Workers Union (TWU). The National Transport Commission (2008) affirmed evidence attesting to a pay-safety connection, which ultimately led to the creation of a specialist tribunal, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) in 2012 by the then Labor government. The RSRT was abolished in 2016 following a change of government and a concerted campaign by vested interest groups including those representing major retailers and users of road transport. However, an inquiry by the Senate Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport (2021) reaffirmed the evidence and the need to regulate. Bolstered by almost complete unanimity amongst transport operators and support from other interest groups, the ‘Closing the Loopholes’ legislation discussed below, included empowering the Commission to make determinations with regard to owner-drivers.

The TWU also initiated a community, industrial and political campaign on behalf of gig-workers and in particularly food-delivery workers (predominantly recent immigrants, many under short-term visa regimes), highlighting the low-wages and long hours they worked, problems of underpayment, intense pressures, hazardous work (including fatalities) and inability to access workers’ compensation. Some state OHS regulators like WorkSafe Tasmania and Safe Work Australia had begun to issue guidance material on gig-work but this was usually fairly generic and focused on duties, obligations and access to PPE, and did not recognise any connection between insecurity, low payments and OHS (Johnstone et al, Reference Johnstone, Bluff and Quinlan2023). The Senate Select Committee on Job Security (2021a) produced an interim report on the on-demand platform work which looked at both IR and OHS aspects, state level initiatives and the circumstances of platform workers in different sectors (such as food delivery and disability care). This report and pre-legislative consultations formed the basis of provisions extending protection to some platform workers (healthcare was excluded). Gig work and the gig economy have also been the subject to state government inquiries, notably in Victoria (Industrial Relations Victoria 2020) while a South Australian Legislative Council inquiry was established in 2023 (incomplete at the time of writing). In April 2024 the House Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education initiated an Inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces.

Another sector which was a focus for inquiries into changed work arrangements, was harvest and seasonal work. A Coalition-government Senate Inquiry (Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education 2006) facilitated the introduction of a special visa category for importing harvest workers, but dismissed concerns about over-staying by the Department of Immigration, noted growers’ commitment to paying award rates, and ignored OHS altogether. A specific scheme was established for importing seasonal workers from Pacific Islands (the Pacific Labour Scheme and then Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme), something that became an important source of jobs and revenue for these small countries. But growing reliance on short-term visa workers had begun before this, with the s417 backpacker category (who were required to work on a farm as one of their jobs) and the industry had transitioned from a predominantly domestic seasonal workforce to heavy reliance on foreign workers, most with short-term visas but with a growing number of undocumented migrants in some regions. Union campaigns and media exposés resulted in a number of inquiries which found widespread exploitation in terms of wages (generally based on piecework pay), use of illegal contractors/labour-hire firms, few OHS safeguards, and poor working and living conditions (Joint Standing Committee on Migration 2016). As a hazardous industry (in terms of injury rates and chemical exposures) agriculture has been the subject of a number of reports (see for example WorkSafe Commissioner 2023) that identified both its dependency on short-term visa workers and their vulnerability, especially when the visa is dependent on the employer. OHS regulators produced guidance material with some targeted (low-level) enforcement but wage theft and other exploitative practices remained widespread, as regular reports from the Fair Work Ombudsman (2018) attested. The most significant change occurred in 2021 when a union campaign resulted in test-case before the Commission that established a harvest award setting minimum hourly rates of pay (Underhill and Quinlan Reference Underhill and Quinlan2024).

Another focal point for inquiries which overlapped with several already mentioned, were the circumstances of workers employed under short-term visa categories such as working holiday-makers (originally s417 visa), skills in demand (initially s457 the TSS visa) and foreign students working. As noted, until the 1980s Australian immigration overwhelmingly targeted permanent migration (including refugees) but after this time a number of shorter-term options were developed (backpackers, skilled shortages and foreign students). This expanded rapidly until in aggregate they dwarfed permanent migration. This growth was occasioned by some category ‘fudging’, businesses built around offering access to residency and evidence of exploitation of workers rendered vulnerable by their visa conditions. Union campaigns and media reports of exploitation of working holiday-makers (popularly referred to as backpackers) and foreign students working in Australia led to a number of federal inquiries which identified serious problems relating to IR and OHS (see for example Senate Education and Employment References Committee 2016). The s457 (temporary skilled migrant) category, ostensibly intended to fill temporary skilled shortages, was subject to some scamming of categories, became a go-to recruitment category, and effectively put workers under a form of ‘indenture’ whereby their stay (and potential for permanent residency) was dependent on employer-nomination. Similarly, many foreign students were seeking permanent residency and depended on income earned in Australia by supporting themselves, which resulted in ‘accommodating’ education institutions like some English language colleges; many such workers were rendered vulnerable to exploitation because they were exceeding their allowable hours. Though some protective legislative provisions were introduced, and the visa category and controls tweaked (as with s457) recommendations and reforms were rather anodyne, such as the Joint Standing Committee on Migration (2020) which recommended better information provision and inter-government agency cooperation. The federal Migrant Workers’ Taskforce (2019) report did provide an overarching review of different categories of migrants, including illegal migrants and students, often deployed in the same industries and workplaces. It found underpayment/wage theft was widespread (and sometimes highly organised) along with unacceptable exposure to health and safety hazards, poor accommodation conditions, problems accessing legislative entitlements including workers’ compensation, and association with a raft of other breaches in legislation (including tax evasion). It further found that some remedial measures including legislative changes and more especially enforcement were not proving effective. Academics Stephen Clibborn and Chris F Wright (see for example Wright and Clibborn, Reference Wright and Clibborn2020) extensively documented the abuses of labour standards under these regimes and made submissions to federal government inquiries which led to a number of regulatory changes by the Labor government, elected in 2022 and already committed to moving Australian immigration back to a traditional focus on permanent migration (Underhill and Quinlan Reference Underhill and Quinlan2024). This point indicates the importance of recognising a broad set of policy settings in addressing the problems posed by precarious work, not just labour protection legislation.

Aside from industry/sector specific inquiries other inquiries examined specific types of precarious work more generally. Most prominent was labour-hire/agency work which was the subject of repeated state, territory and federal government inquiries and reports, sometimes in conjunction with consideration of contracting (see for example Finance and Administration Committee 2016; Forsyth Reference Forsyth2016; O’Neill Reference O’Neill2004; Senate Select Committee 2021b; Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Youth Affairs 2018). These reports painted a picture with a familiar ring to the exploitative practices identified in other investigations into precarious work including low wages/underpayment, intense job insecurity (labour-hire workers can be removed from site without any reason given), poorer OHS (including capacity to raise OHS safety concerns and regulatory oversight) and problematic access to workers’ compensation when injured.

Reports also pointed to the particular vulnerability of recent migrants, especially those under short-term work visas (consistent with research identifying instances where some overseas-based agencies required works to sign contracts that breached industrial relations laws, Toh and Quinlan Reference Toh and Quinlan2009). A number also referred to the blurring of the line between independent contractor and employee and the need to better integrate IR, OHS and workers’ compensation protective regimes. These findings were based on submissions, testimony (including experts) and a large body of Australian research which in turn was entirely consistent with global research (see for example Strauss-Raats Reference Strauss-Raats2019). The Victorian inquiry (Forsyth Reference Forsyth2016) was especially strong in its use of evidence and in making a range of well-argued recommendations for regulatory change. The most common response to the problems identified was the preparation of detailed guidance material and targeted enforcement by OHS regulators, and ultimately after strident resistance, the licensing of agencies – echoing forgotten strategies for regulating precarious work a century before (Office of Industrial Relations 2017). Labour-hire received particular attention from the Senate Select Committee (2012), which together with subsequent stakeholder and expert consultations, set the context for key provisions in the Closing the Loopholes Legislation.

A number of reports prepared by state and federal governments (including their agencies) examined labour market changes more generally. WorkCover NSW (the agency then regulating OHS and workers’ compensation) commissioned a report on the challenges and remedies for both OHS and workers’ compensation by work changes (Quinlan Reference Quinlan2002). The report which considered other state jurisdictions documented that precarious work undermined OHS and coverage of injured/ill workers under existing compensation regimes, canvassing an array of regulatory responses but deeming most existing ones to be fragmented and inadequate. The weakening of workers’ compensation regimes due to the growth of precarious work was identified in a number of other state and federal government inquiries, and this had flow-on effects to OHS statistics derived from compensation claim records (see for example Safe Work Australia 2009). The more general IR and OHS effects of changed work arrangements received attention in other venues, including a test case on casual employment heard by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (2003). In 2021–2022 a Senate Select Committee on Job Security (2022) considered the IR, OHS and worker compensation effects of a wide array of precarious work arrangements including gig work, contracting and labour-hire. The inquiry did not ignore earlier learning, considering a considerable amount of research evidence as well as submissions, and asking those making submissions to address lessons that could be drawn from COVID-19. It also canvassed the broader policy remedies including encouraging industries like manufacturing that were more likely to be characterised by secure work than large parts of the service sector (like tourism and hospitality) which had become increasingly important in terms of overall employment. The report also made a number of recommendations pertaining to IR, OHS and workers’ compensation regulation and policy, a number of which formed a focus for extensive consultation that preceded the introduction of the Closing the Loopholes legislation (Fair Work Commission n. d.).

Summarising the foregoing, this section indicates that over 50 state and federal government inquiries examined the impact of changed work arrangements on labour standards, OHS and (to a lesser extent) workers’ compensation, most focusing on either a particular work-arrangement (including specific short-term visas) or a specific sector. Taken together, these inquiries made consistent findings on the effects, namely that labour, OHS standards and worker rights and entitlements, were undermined. The sheer number of public inquiries and their unanimity is remarkable, although consistent with Australian and overseas research. It is also worth noting in passing that their findings were confirmed by the observations of other inquiries which touched on changed work arrangements as well as an inquiry undertaken by ACTU and reports prepared by NGOs. Some inquiries which considered work arrangements as part of a wider brief resulted in important recommendations/changes, especially in the light of COVID including minimum staffing requirements, discouraging multiple jobholding in aged care, and minimum nurse ratios in hospitals – something the nurses’ union had been pressing for well over a decade on both public health and OHS grounds.

What is also remarkable is that while some reports drew on the findings of previous inquiries and the extensive body of research, most adopted a narrow focus and recommendations, rather than seeing the shift as whole, which amongst other things weakened the value of their policy prescriptions/recommendations. Nonetheless, the sheer number of inquiries and their detailed documentation of problems created circumstances in terms of public awareness, policy debates and the like which could be used to justify more fundamental reforms. Further, several more broad-ranging inquiries and associated union campaigns (on gig-work for example) had influenced the thinking of the incoming Labor government. Critically, this knowledge was used to shape two rounds of extensive consultation with academic experts, industry and union representatives on how legislation could best address particular problems (for example with regard to job insecurity and labour hire and regulating contract truck drivers), The result was that considerable and informed deliberations preceded the legislative package, including elements that effectively amounted to a paradigmatic shift to regulating work (or at least for those that are employee-like), not just wage-employment. As well, this shift was legitimised by ensuring these workers were now assigned as a responsibility of Australia’s central industrial relations tribunal – the Fair Work Commission. As the next section indicates, industrial relations legislation and a number of associated changes (notably to migration policy) highlighted a significant shift. These changes not only addressed many of the problems identified by the earlier inquiries in a more systematic/integrated fashion – as part of a more general shift back towards the more collectivist that had prevailed for much of the 20^th century – but also included new and novel features.

The re-regulation of work in Australia

The rise of neoliberalism (including IR laws more hostile to unions and containing union-weakening practices like outsourcing and privatisation) together with sectoral shifts in employment (especially the decline in manufacturing) led to a substantial decline in union density in the three decades from 1975 (Peetz Reference Peetz1999). The Rudd Labor government’s Fair Work reforms from 2008 to 2009 wound back some of the worst aspects of the prior neoliberal Work Choices laws, but failed to rebuild collectivism or significantly improve wages and conditions (especially for precarious workers). However, precarious work arrangements both within employment (e.g. casual employment; low paid employment in female dominated industries) and beyond the employment relationship (e.g. dependent contractor arrangements) continued to be marked by significantly inferior pay and conditions. This in turn undercut the wages and conditions of employees in more secure continuing employment arrangements (Clarke et al Reference Clarke, Lewchuk, de Wolff and King2007, 325) and blurred the boundary between precarious work and continuing employment, particularly when factors such as degree of job uncertainty, and absence of control over the labour process including lack of control over wage rates, conditions and pace of work, are considered (Bernstein et al Reference Bernstein, Lippel, Tucker, Vosko and Vosko2006, 214). In retrospect, the bargaining regime established by these Fair Work reforms limited worker capacity to improve their wages and conditions by largely restricting bargaining of collective agreements to the enterprise level. This made it difficult for unions to negotiate agreements in sectors with low bargaining coverage (Wright Reference Wright2024). Further, employers (not unions or workers) were given a central role in the agreement-making process, and there have been considerable restrictions on collective power including a very limited capacity for workers to engage in industrial action (Forsyth and McCrystal Reference Forsyth and McCrystal2023, 1105, 1107). This all added up to very limited union powers to restrict or regulate precarious work arrangements.

The ‘model’ Work Health and Safety (WHS)Footnote ² laws in Australia were introduced in 2013 to better address complex work arrangements by broadening coverage to ‘workers’ and by broadening a range of other duty-holders including employers under a more encompassing term which was ‘persons in charge of a business or undertaking’ or ‘PCBU’ (Quinlan and Walters Reference Quinlan and Walters2023, 56). WHS laws also afforded workers the power to elect health and safety representatives and to form Health and Safety Committees in order to assess, plan for, monitor and enforce workplace health and safety risks (e.g. Work Health and Safety Act (Cth), Part 5). As such these WHS laws offered the dual benefits of broad coverage and the capacity to boost industrial democracy at the workplace level. Nevertheless, their efficacy remains under indirect threat (see Anderson and Quinlan Reference Anderson and Quinlan2008) due to the separation of WHS laws from workers’ compensation and pay and conditions law which, up until the very recent changes discussed in this article, continued to focus mainly on regulating the employer-employee relationship. This lack of integration of these three artificially separated areas of labour law is particularly problematic in industries where low pay can be hazardous (Quinlan and Walters Reference Quinlan and Walters2023, 56). For example, in road transport work as well as in platform work, low pay underpins a number of other problems – including poor WHS. (Bluff, Johnstone, and Quinlan Reference Bluff, Johnstone and Quinlan2023; Quinlan Reference Quinlan2023, 1). Thus, whilst of some use, WHS laws (especially in their application to some industries such as the transport sector) do not get to the nub of the problem because the underlying cause of poor OHS can be traced to remuneration levels and methods (Quinlan Reference Quinlan2023, 6).

Upon being elected in 2022, the Albanese Labor government embarked on a number of tranches of industrial relations reforms including Secure Jobs Better Pay reforms in 2022 and two rounds of the Closing Loopholes reforms passed in 2023 and 2024 (which amended the Fair Work Act 2009(Cth) (FW Act). The then federal minister for industrial relations, Tony Burke, played an instrumental role in devising and shepherding the regulatory reforms, including initiating several rounds of extensive consultation with industry, unions, academics and other interested parties. Unions also played a further critical role. For example, as noted in the last section, the TWU had conducted a decades-long campaign in relation to the pay/commercial practices/safety connections on trucking and was able to secure the support and engagement from the bulk of the road transport industry for tribunal determinations which learned lessons from the earlier Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. This success also reflected splits in capital occasioned by both elaborate supply chains and neoliberalism. A similar campaign with regard to food-delivery workers also won sufficient ‘buy-in’ to secure legislative coverage of these and other platform workers. While other groups of platform workers (notably those in healthcare) were excluded, an important precedent has been set. Both these campaigns and others connected to understaffing in healthcare, wage theft, and the hyper-exploitation of migrants (especially temporary visa holders) entailed widespread media coverage and aroused community concern sufficient to assist the introduction of new protections including muting the effectiveness of opposition from neoliberal interests.

The legislative amendments to mainstream pay and conditions laws now align industrial regulation more closely to the WHS model of regulating work. The package of interconnected reforms is intended to rebuild unions, expand tribunal powers and better protect precarious workers (including gig workers). Overall, the reforms represent a shift away from neoliberalism and back to collectivism. Part of the strategy to rebuild collectivism through state intervention, is to broaden the scope of industrial regulation by regulating more closely work arrangements both within and outside the employment relationship so that gaps in the system are plugged, unions and government regulators have improved scope to enforce labour laws, and employers are forced to the bargaining table. In combination, these measures make the collective system more difficult to evade and avoid. A central element of this collective system is that the powers of a responsive industrial tribunal to hand down tailored standards and/or facilitate bargaining (especially in relation to categories of precarious workers including labour hire workers, low paid employees, digital labour platform workers and contractors in the road transport industry) are significantly boosted, bringing the regime closer to one which regulates ‘work’, not just employment. Thus, this system of Australian regulation in its intent, scope, institutions and processes compares favourably to labour laws in some other countries, especially to those which are largely still focussed on regulating the narrow category of employment. By coupling laws to protect precarious workers labouring outside the employment relationship with a recalibration of the balance of power within the employment relationship (through greater tribunal intervention and a more central role for unions in the tribunal and in bargaining), the system of industrial regulation as a whole is geared towards better job and income security not only for continuing employees but importantly, also for more precarious workers including low paid employees, casuals, those on fixed-term contracts, and digital labour platform workers as well as some other vulnerable contractors. This is particularly so given that there is less scope for employer avoidance of more secure arrangements in the reformed system.

Concluding observations

It is no coincidence that the Labor government reforms combine changes to rebuild collectivism and better regulate precarious work. As was noted there are striking parallels with the past whereby widespread precarious work and the problems associated with it, played a pivotal part in the introduction of significant IR reforms over century ago, including in the case of Australia’s arbitration system and central wage fixing tribunals. The regulatory model focused on employment rather than work but was arguably right to do so, given the dominant capital strategies of the time. This protective architecture was severely weakened by neoliberalism and the associated problems then documented in numerous government inquiries (and academic research), which while fragmented in their approach to the problem, did provide a base for a more coordinated assessment of the problem and detailed consultation that informed the Albanese government’s IR law reforms. While innovative in several ways, an outstanding element was giving the Fair Work Commission the power to make determinations of non-employees (such as Uber drivers and owner-truck drivers) in employee-like arrangements. While not entirely without precedent this amounts to a paradigm shift in IR regulation and one that directly addresses the challenges posed by the new wave of precarious work, many in subcontracting arrangements where they can nonetheless be subject to close surveillance and control digitally. This shift also entails a recognition that precarious work and workplace change are best addressed at industry/sector level rather than at the enterprise where any determination risks being undermined by a less scrupulous competitor.

Taken as a whole, the reform package could restructure Australian labour markets and simultaneously improve working conditions for continuing employees and most types of precarious workers. In particular, there is much greater capacity in the system to improve standards across entire industries and better address precarity in work arrangements. The direct extension of labour laws to gig workers and certain contractors and improvement in standards for casual, fixed-term and low-paid employees, is augmented by the rebuilding of conciliation and arbitration powers, the facilitation of more collective bargaining both at a particular enterprise and across multiple enterprises, and by giving unions a greater platform to lift standards for all workers, whether precarious or otherwise. The Australian union movement (which has been motivated to build collective power through addressing precarious work for some time now) (see for example ACTU 2011) may be able to better do so through this increased platform (and possibly by way of more funds gained from more financial memberships).

In 1944 the International Labour Organization declared that labour was not a commodity. Three decades later, the rise of neoliberalism ensured labour would be increasingly commodified by precarious work where labour was engaged on a short-term, insecure and transactional basis, including growing global shifts of temporary migrants (Rosewarne Reference Rosewarne2010; Wright and Clibborn, Reference Wright and Clibborn2020), epitomising this ‘new’ world of work. The rise of the fissured workplace (Weil Reference Weil2014) has been marked by a belated and equally fissured regulatory response. The Albanese government legislation represents the most systematic attempt to deal with some of the problems and entails elements of a paradigm shift because it regulates ‘employee-like’ arrangements, a step towards regulating work rather than employment. As noted in The ‘new’ world of work and its regulation in historical context section this was a weakness in the early wave of labour laws enacted over a century ago and one that has become more pressing given how digital technologies have facilitated Uber-type arrangements and other forms of subcontracting. This shift to regulating work not just employment already occurred with regard to Australian OHS laws (Tooma & Johnstone, Reference Tooma and Johnstone2022). These developments warrant global attention because they begin to address the already large, deliberately manufactured and growing gaps in pre-existing regulatory protections, overwhelmingly confined to employment arrangements.

The legislation and related campaigns also will assist industries who have long struggled with exploitative subcontracting arrangements like construction while also having implications for the use of labour-hire at lower wages in mining. Nonetheless, these reforms depend on effective enforcement (including industry-focused FWO staff who would ‘know’ the rorting/evasive practices most common in that industry) especially as new evasive measures emerge like illegal transport operations issuing of ABN numbers to vulnerable workers in trucking and elsewhere.

Early signs are that the bargaining reforms have boosted the collective power of employees to bargain more and better pay and conditions deals. There has been increased use of Commission conciliation to resolve high-profile disputes including those involving large companies such as Chevron, Switzer, Woodside, Virgin, Esso and DP World. As at the time of writing this article in 2024 four intractable bargaining declarations had been made including one in the aviation sector, two in the road transport industry and one for fire-fighters, with another application in relation to a dispute involving fire-fighters being refused (Stewart and Rinaldi Reference Stewart and Rinaldi2024). One supported bargaining authorisation (in the child care industry) had been made. Finally, in the financial year 2023–2024, there were only 13 applications for a single interest employer authorisation (Fair Work Commission 2024, 63). Therefore, the efficacy of single interest employer authorisations in broadening multi-enterprise bargaining is not yet fully evident. However, enterprise agreement approvals were 16% higher over the last year than the previous year and included higher wage rates than the previous year (Stewart and Rinaldi Reference Stewart and Rinaldi2024).

Given the legislation specifically regulates gig work and road transport contractor arrangements outside the employment relationship it will prove difficult to avoid and could therefore operate to spread compliant business behaviour across industries. A growing number of studies indicate that regulating entire supply chains in hierarchically organised industries can improve working conditions of workers at the base, provided the legal framework is actively enforced by a regulator (Rawling Reference Rawling2014, 206–207; Rawling et al Reference Rawling, Kaine, Josserand and Boersma2021) In light of this evidence (which is from both the cleaning and apparel sectors) we are optimistic that the road transport contractual chain orders can have a similar positive effect. The ability of the relevant union as well as the FWO to enforce these contractual chain orders (ss539, 536PM, 536NS FW Act) in the road transport industry increases the chances of successful implementation, (provided the legislation lasts for a considerable period of time for this to occur). This road transport regulation may then be able to serve as a model for the appropriate adaptation and expansion of mandatory supply chain regulation for employment policy purposes to other Australian industries characterised by supply chains as well as to supply chains in other countries.

In terms of precarious/non-standard work more generally, the legislation contains a number of mutually reinforcing measures including increasing the scope for multi-employer bargaining/determinations, significantly strengthening provisions relating to award evasion/wage-theft and the ‘same work same principle’ (echoing the historic comparative wage justice principle) which can apply to labour-hire/agency work arrangements which unions like the Mining and Energy Union have rapidly utilised. In short, the innovative nature of the legislation is confined to particular features but the integrated package of reforms both address specific problems connected to non-standard work/contracting and problems with work more generally. Another important aspect is how these reforms are reinforced by other government policy changes in the area of immigration (returning the focus to permanent migration), bolstering local manufacturing, staffing requirements in the aged care sector, and (in sharp contrast to its predecessor) the Labor government’s strong support for increases in the minimum wage.

The legislative changes also signify a reversal of the attack on arbitration, which began in the 1970s. Indeed, the reforms may see a return to the centrality of conciliation and arbitration whereby the industrial tribunal sets legally enforceable standards for the majority of the Australian workforce (see Anderson and Quinlan Reference Anderson and Quinlan2008, 122, 126) and resolves collective disputes. This may assist in a return to the delivery of a ‘measure of social justice’ and the maintenance of industrial peace without unacceptable economic consequences (see Anderson and Quinlan Reference Anderson and Quinlan2008, 123). Overall, the Albanese Labor government changes to federal Australian IR law represent a major shift in policy by providing an integrated set of reforms to pay and conditions law. Nonetheless, it will take time to fully implement these reforms and further change is required including a shift to regulating work and working conditions in all its spheres and reconciling the challenges posed by the ongoing trifurcation of law regulating work. There are also the challenges posed to any single jurisdiction/country by the global nature of some practices and the corporations promoting them. While the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Decent Work agenda has clear applicability to precarious work, it has limited regulatory powers that nation-states routinely ignore and the ILO refused to formally publish a comprehensive report on the OHS effects and policy remedies associated with supply chains following objections from employer representatives. On a more optimistic note the International Transport Federation (ITF) is promoting a global ‘safe-rates’ campaign supported by a research experts’ network. Hopefully, positive developments in countries like Australia will reinforce the reform push in other countries and globally.