New union-won rights at work: what you need to know

In the last two years, the union movement has won the biggest changes to workers’ rights in this country in generations. These changes deliver new and improved rights that empower millions of workers. 

The scale and significance of these wins show what union members can achieve when we campaign and have a Labor government in power, ready and willing to support working people.

Most of these rights are already in effect, and union members are using the new laws to win fairer and safer workplaces.

Other rights are coming into effect in just a few weeks, which means now is the time to learn what they are, why they are so important and how to make the most of them.

Already a union member?

Reach out to your union for more specific information about how you and your workmates can use these rights in your workplace. 

Not a member of your union?

Joining your union will ensure you’re getting the new pay and conditions that you’re entitled to.

What changes to the law delivered these new and improved rights?

In the past two years, there have been five major changes to Australia’s main work law (Fair Work Act 2009) and a change to the law on paid parental leave (Paid Parental Leave Act 2010). Here’s what the changes were about:

Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave

This change introduced 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for all workers.

Secure Jobs, Better Pay 

This change focused on improving job security, gender equality and workers’ right to request to work flexibly. It also simplified and strengthened how union members can use their collective voice to bargain for and win better pay and conditions.

Protecting Worker Entitlements 

This change brought in greater flexibility for workers taking unpaid parental leave and the entitlement to superannuation in the National Employment Standards. It also strengthened protections for migrant workers.

Closing Loopholes (No.1) 

This change delivered better protections for workplace delegates, labour-hire workers and independent contractors. It also strengthened rules to stop wage theft and industrial manslaughter, and improved work health and safety for certain workers.

Closing Loopholes (No.2) 

This change saw improved rights and more choices for gig workers and casuals. It also set out to improve workers’ work-life balance with the introduction of the right to disconnect.

Paid Parental Leave 

This change broadens the availability and eligibility of the government’s paid parental leave scheme.

Winning + Using = Embedding + Protecting

Winning the new rights and protections is just the beginning – now is the time to use them; to protect them. Because losing them again is a real possibility. 

Peter Dutton has already committed to turning secure jobs into casual jobs, repealing the right to disconnect and standing against minimum standards for gig workers. And leaked documents reveal that the Coalition’s agenda includes further changes to work laws that would send workers’ wages and rights backwards. 

These union-won workplace rights over the past two years have contributed to higher wage growth for workers – in fact, real wages over the past year have grown by the same amount as the total over nearly 10 years of the previous Coalition government. 

The Liberal Party have said themselves that low wages have always been a “deliberate design feature” of their policies and that real wage growth would be “the worst thing for Australians”. Their proposals would deliver exactly that.

The last thing workers need is another Liberal government committed to sabotaging wages and work rights in a cost of-living-crisis.

We can’t let Petter Dutton and the Coalition send workers backwards. Join the fight to protect these historic work rights from Dutton, and learn about them, share them, and use them, so they become so embedded in our working lives that taking them away is unthinkable.