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Employment Relations in Australia

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Added on  2020-05-28

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EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS 2 Running Head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS 1 Employment Relations: Role of the Fair Work Ombudsman in Australia The Employment relations and workplace relations in Australia set a safety net of minimum conditions and terms of employment and a variety of workplace responsibilities and rights. The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is an independent and statutory agency that is created under Fair Work Act, 2009 (FW Act). The Fair Work Ombudsman of Australia plays an independent and vital role in the

Employment Relations in Australia

   Added on 2020-05-28

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Running Head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS 1Employment Relations: Role of the FairWork Ombudsman in Australia
Employment Relations in Australia_1
EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS 2The Employment relations and workplace relations in Australia set a safety net ofminimum conditions and terms of employment and a variety of workplace responsibilities andrights. In this country, employment system is the combination of common law, legislation,legally binding agreements and awards. Australia has a syndicate of state and federal laws thataddresses several issues such as; working hours, workplace conditions like occupational safetyand health, compensation, industrial action and annual leaves. Australian employment relationsystem, i.e. the Fair Work System started on 1st July 2009 and it was established by the FairWork Act 2009. This system includes the most of the workplaces in Australia (Bamber, Wales,Lansbury and Wright, 2015). This act created an independent agency that was named as FairWork Ombudsman (FWO). This essay discusses the effectiveness and role of Fair WorkOmbudsman in Australian system of employment relations. It is playing an effective role indeveloping better relationships at Australian workplaces. In Australia, employment and workplace relation laws are sanctioned by the CommonwealthParliament. The practical implementation of the Fair Work Act is overlooked by the Fair WorkOmbudsman and Fair Work Commission. The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is an independentand statutory agency that is created under Fair Work Act, 2009 (FW Act). The Fair WorkOmbudsman and current head of this agency is Natalie James. She was appointed on thisposition by the Government-General on the July 15 2013 (Shaw, McPhail & Ressia, 2018). TheFWO is assisted by staff, which helps with the advisory functions and work and performance ofworkplace compliance, developed under Fair Work Act. Fair Work Ombudsman has its officesall over Australia, which are situated in major cities and local areas of all territories and states. The Fair Work Ombudsman of Australia plays an independent and vital role in the enhancingproductive workplace relations and making sure that workplaces are complying with differentemployment and workplace laws. Its free services include education and advice related to fairwork practices and enquiry of alleged breaches. The major role of this office is to promoteproductive, cooperative and harmonious relations at workplaces (Pocock, Charlesworth, andChapman, 2013). In addition to this, it monitors, investigates, analyzes and enforces thecompliance of employment laws of Australia. There are five specific acts of FWO and theseservices are provided without charging any fees. These services include;
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EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS 3FWO is responsible for providing education to the working population in Australia aboutthe rights, obligations and fair work practices.It provides a single place of communication for timely and reliable information about theemployment relation system of Australia. It makes efforts for developing and maintaining the effective and strong relationshipswith unions, industries and other internal and external stakeholders (Stewart, 2011).Moreover, FWO plays a critical role in evaluating the complaints and alleged breaches ofemployment laws, awards and agreements and orders from Fair Work Commission. In addition to above role, FWO has an important role in the process of litigation in somesituations to apply workplace legislations and prevent the people from doing wrongful actin the community and workplace. In this way, staff at this office is committed to give advice, on which people can rely and helpingthe employees and employees to resolve the workplace issues. It also hires Fair Work Inspectors,who are empowered to search and apply enforcement of Australian workplace laws’ compliance(Fair Work Ombudsman, 2018). These laws and regulations include: different provisions of FairWork Act, 2009, National Employment Standards, Contractors Act, 2006, orders of Fair WorkCommission and different agreements. To avail the information about the obligations and rightsat workplace, the people can go to the website, i.e. www.fairwork.gov.au. The employees, whothink that they are illegally discriminating by employer, can request assistance from the office ofFair Work Ombudsman (Wells, 2009). There are some pending things, which need to beincluded under the entitlement of Fair Work Ombudsman such as minimum wage, fine oninfringement, employment checklist etc. In this way, Fair Work Act, 2009 gives protection ofvarious rights like workplace rights, right to become free from unlawful discrimination, right toinvolve in industrial operations etc. From the above content, it is critically analyzed about Fair Work Ombudsman that it has bothpositive and negative impacts on the organization and its workplace. However the challenges ofFWO are very few, as it offers various benefits to both employees and employers. The office ofFair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is very favorable for developing and maintaining effectiverelationships between employees and employers (Hardy & Howe, 2015). The FWO providesemployers and employees free advice and information on working conditions, pay, working
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