Overview of the Fair Work Ombudsman
The Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman or FWO is an autonomous department under the Ministry of Employment, Government of Australia. The body was formed on July 1, 2009 and stands on Fair Work Act 2009. They function as the representatives of the ministry to enforce safe and secure workplace environment in the business organizations in the country. The body looks into enforcement of employee safety in the business organizations and provides guidance to both employees and employers in the area. The head of the office of FWO is Senetor, the Honorable Michaelia Cash. The jurisdiction of the Fair Work Ombudsman spans both public and private sector companies operating within Australia. Its jurisdiction also includes the Australian branches of foreign multinational companies irrespective of industry and country of origin. The organizations and the employees can gain information on the workplace laws on the official website of the body. The FWO has its headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. The Fair Work Ombudsman offices are also present in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth.
The Fair Work Ombudsman of Australia are very effective in enforcement employee rights and benefits in the workplaces in Australia and have several positive aspects which make their presence in undisputed in the workplace scenario of the country. The business organizations and their employees require the services of FWO to operate ethically and sustainably in the market. The FWO provides education to the employers and their employees’ information on payments, salaries, rights of employees and obligations of business organizations to their employees. They provide resort to employees when they are exploited by their employers and are denied legitimate rights like payments or made to work under unsafe work conditions (independent.co.uk, 2018). The Fair Work Ombudsmen can provide guidance to employees in areas of tax, harassment of the employees in the workplaces, unfair dismissals, leaves and other employment related disputes with the employers. The body forbids business organizations functioning within Australia to enforce safe work conditions for all the employees in their organizations. The body has also mandated companies to extend safety to their outsourced employees. The companies engaged in activities where employees have to work under conditions prone to accidents like construction companies are mandated by the body to ensure safety of all the employees (theguardian.com, 2018).
The importance of the Fair Work Ombudsman lies in the fact that the body is empowered to take legal actions against companies violating safe work conditions and denying their employees their legitimate rights. For example, the Fair Work Ombudsman fined a Taiwanese firm an amount of $ 900000 when it under paid its employees by $5 an hour (fairwork.gov.au, 2018). The body imposed heavy fine on a national level securities company called Securities International Services Proprietary Limited when it underpaid its employees. The fine was even bigger because the investigation showed that the firm encouraged its sub-contractors to use the same exploitative behaviour on its employees. An analysis of these two cases shows that the body is capable of taking actions against both foreign and national level companies. One can also point out that the body is empowered to initiate formal investigations and legal actions against companies on receiving complaints from employees. One can also point out that the body is emerging as a necessity to protect employee rights in Australia keeping the rising exploitation of workers, especially foreign workers in the country (independent.co.uk, 2018).
Functions of the Fair Work Ombudsman
The Fair Work Ombudsman is necessary for the labourers because it protects their rights and minimises their exploitation in the hands of their employers. Australia is a developed economy with immense power to generate employment. The country is also one of the most sought after employment destination in the world which means that a huge number of employees from nations like China come here in search of job. This immense inflow of job seekers in the country have also given rise to illegal groups which exploit workers and make them work under harsh conditions. There have been reports of farm workers and mine workers being exploited by providing no salary and forced to live in poverty working for long hours without rest. There have even reports of workers bring injured and being dying due to these situations (theguardian.com, 2018). The Fair Work Ombudsman enables the Government of Australia to rescue these exploited foreign workers. It can be pointed out that the necessity of FWO is not restricted to rescue of exploited workers but goes beyond that.
The necessity of the the FWO lies in the fact it plays strategic role in the foreign relationship and the maintaining a high image of the country of Australia on the global stage. For example, the exploitation of foreign workers in Australia can result in breaching foreign relationship the country has with other countries. These incidences can malign the image of Australia, thus reducing it form acquiring foreign talents. This would in turn limit the innovations which the foreign employees carry out in the companies of Australia. These exploitations would also reduce the acceptance of Australian workers in the foreign countries. Thus one can easily point out that FWO rescues exploited foreign workers and enables the country to create a strong employee centric image on the international stage (smh.com.au, 2018).
The third necessity of FWO lies in the fact that it enables the Government of Australia build a strong and positive image not only before the foreign countries, but also among Australian citizens. As per the Australian Bureau of Statistics, around 2.5 percent of Australian belong to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander group as per latest data available (abs.gov.au, 2018) (Appendix). There have been reports of these Aboriginal people suffering discrimination and other unfair practices in the workplaces (smh.com.au, 2018). Such treatments are likely to create fear and insecurity of the Aboriginal people regarding their rights and consequently lead to erosion of support for the government. Thus, the FWO rescues these people from exploitation in workplaces and ensure the trust of the residents of Australia in the government.
Importance of the Fair Work Ombudsman
The Fair Work Ombudsman is an important part of the Australian judicial system and plays significant role in settling industrial disputes. The growing disputes in the workplaces of Australia, increasing dispute between the employers and employees, rising exploitation of migrant workers and growing pressure to curb all these incidences necessitate FWO play more proactive roles in the industrial landscape of Australia. This increasing necessity of FWO has made the Government of Australia enact Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017to empower the Fair Work Act 2009 (fairwork.gov.au, 2018). These empowerment of FWO would allow it to conduct investigations into companies breaching the Fair Work Act 2009 and their franchisees, holding companies and outsourced organisations. The FWO thus acts as a part of the Australian judicial system and help in settling industrial disputes.
FWO undoubtedly plays a very important role in Australian labour market but suffers from certain issues. The first weakness of FWO is that it lacks coherence and clarity. For example, the the provisions and laws of the Fair Work Act are often not comprehendible to the workers which force them to take help of legal firms and advisors. This increases the cost of filing disputes against employers in the events of exploitation in their hands. The employers, especially the multinational firms have separate legal departments which deal with the disputes (thewest.com.au, 2018). Thus, the employers are at more advantageous position to fight disputes filed against them by their employees. This is evident by continuing bullying in the workplaces and breaching of the Safe Work Act 2009. This lack of coherence is more evident with the deaths of workers at the construction and mining sites, though the figure shows a fall. The reports published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the number of injuries has fallen in 2013-2014 but 25 injuries in 1000 persons is still quite high (abs.gov.au, 2018) (Appendix 2). These accidents clearly point out the lack of implementation of safety measures in workplaces and failure of FWO to curb this illegal activity totally.
The next weakness of Fair Work Ombudsman is lack of proper investigation into employee exploitation cases. For example, a case involving the international supermarket chain Coles and its exploitation of its suppliers revealed that the former has exploited the latter. The supermarket chain even tried to use its market goodwill to turn the matter in its favour was extremely unethical (smh.com.auv, 2018). The Fair Work Ombudsman could have investigated into the matter earlier and taken stricter actions. There have been reports of rising corruption in the government departments of Australia which also include the Fair Work Ombudsman. The executives of the multinational companies often bribe officials and try to influence investigations into exploitations of their employees. Thus, corruption and lack of proper investigation which often takes place due to illegal influences impedes FWO from carrying out its full responsibilities (abs.gov.au, 2018).
Weaknesses of Fair Work Ombudsman
The government funding is one of the issues FWO faces and to certain extent it is aligned with the corruptive practices prevailing in the government machinery of Australia. For example, the government receives taxes and financial help from multinational companies. The multinational companies even fund the political agendas of the ruling party to ensure its victory in the election. This help the multinational companies offer to the government enables the former to influence the latter in distorting complaints their employees lodge with the FWO against exploitation (governmentnews.com.au, 2018). Moreover, the FWO is depending on the Ministry of Employment for its funding and powers. Thus, funding becomes an issue due to corruption and influences of exploitative MNCs on the government.
The next issue which FWO suffer from while fulfilling its duties is the complex nature of the workforce in Australia which, to certain extent is influenced by corruption. The workforce in Australia is composed of employees working in organisations of diverse types, agricultural workers and myriads of different type of voluntary workers (Reilly, 2015). The labour market of Australia is also experiencing huge inflow of migrant workers having different skill levels from other countries. The labour union and the government also exercise considerable say on the work forces. Moreover, the Australian labour market also has illegal contractors which bring foreign workers to exploit them on farms and make them work under unhealthy conditions. These farms and contractors often supply products to supermarket chains which take no action against these exploitative and illegal rackets (Baas 2015). The involvement of political and corporate organisations makes conducting investigations involving worker exploitation especially the ones involving big MNCs, political leaders or the labour unions. Thus complex nature of workforce in Australia and its multiple stakeholders makes investigations of FWO difficult, thus impeding the entire procedure (Reilly, 2015).
The next issue which Fair Work Ombudsman suffers from consist of limitation of money allocated to its activities by the government. The body has to operate throughout Australia and deal with innumerable companies and employees. Moreover, the scope of its work is so immense that it has to maintain high level officers. It has to pay huge salary to these officers which put immense pressure on its limited resources. Thus it can be summarised that limitation of financial resources puts immense pressure on the FWO (Fayomi, Chidozie & Ayo, 2015).
The next issue the company faces is that its officers are always under threats from antisocial groups which are financed by exploitative companies. This risk of losing lives often prevent the ombudsman officers from carrying out full-fledged investigation. The outcome of this issue is that the suffering employees do not get justices and the employers can evade Australian laws very easily. This is a serious issue because it endangers public trust in the FWO and it importance (Reilly, 2015).
Conclusion:
Thus, it can be concluded that Fair Work Ombudsman in Australia play significant roles in protecting workers against exploitation in hands of their employers. The services of the body has been even more important considering the rising incidences of employee exploitation and even death in workplaces. The situation has become even graver with exploitation of workers from other countries which is capable of causing serious breach in bilateral relationships which Australia has with other countries. Thus, the FWO plays a great role in maintaining diplomatic ties of Australia by rescuing foreign workers from being exploited. The body rescues the Aboriginal workers from being exploited in the work places, thus promoting healthy work conditions and paving ways for economic development of Australia. The body plays a significant role in upholding public faith in the government. However, presence of corruption hinders smooth operations of the body. One can also conclude that the numbers of employers and employees in Australia are too big to be monitored by one single organisation. This makes tracing employee disputing and taking action difficult and complicated. Thus, it can be recommended that the government should provide more support to the FWO in minimising employee exploitations. The rate of corruption should be reduced in order to enable the body function justly to promote human resource development in Australia.
References:
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