Building a foundation for success: three priorities for the new Fair Work Agency
Building a foundation for success: three priorities for the new Fair Work Agency 230 KB
There is a summary of the briefing below.
Summary
Every year, Citizens Advice supports 100,000 people with employment problems. We see first-hand that for too many workers, rights that exist on paper are often denied in practice. Workers who are in low-paid, insecure, non-unionised jobs are the most likely to face issues at work, and the least likely to be able to enforce their rights under the current system.
We have long highlighted the problems with the enforcement system, which is fragmented, under-resourced, and overly reliant on individuals taking action through an increasingly overburdened tribunal system.
That’s why the passage of the Employment Rights Act (ERA) - and the creation of the Fair Work Agency (FWA) - are such major milestones. The FWA offers a landmark opportunity to tackle these problems head-on and fix what is broken in the enforcement system.
But to realise this opportunity, the FWA must not be a rebrand of the current system. Its success depends on putting three essential building blocks in place from the start:
Build and fund strong partnerships with frontline organisations to ensure the FWA is trusted, accessible and intelligence-led.
Establish a safe reporting mechanism for migrant workers, underpinned by an end to joint enforcement with immigration, to ensure a credible route to justice for workers facing some of the greatest risks.
Create a strong deterrent against non-compliance and secure a sustainable funding stream including by imposing a levy on non-compliant employers.