A paid agent claiming to have never been told of any complaints about its services has welcomed FWC suggestions to regulate the industry while insisting the Commission should "surgically" root out "bad actors" rather than take a shotgun approach that could raise costs for workers contesting dismissals.
The Law Council has endorsed the FWC's quest for stricter regulation of paid agents, but warned it off considering the "capacity" of lawyers to act for parties in cases before the Commission.
The law firm whose advocacy helped spur the FWC to consider regulating paid agents has called for improved "referral pathways" that steer workers contesting their dismissals towards pro bono clearing houses, Legal Aid and the community legal sector.
An experienced former employer-clientele lawyer turned HR manager has suggested that one way of discouraging paid agents from pursuing "unwinnable" cases is to introduce a "threshold" settlement amount below which they cannot charge clients for their services.
The FWC should look to the South Australian paid agent model because its registration criteria and disciplinary powers for code of conduct breaches are superior to the Western Australian system, the WA IRC's registrar says in a submission to the FWC's consultation on options to rein in "challenging paid agent conduct".
The FWC is seeking feedback on options to rein in "challenging paid agent conduct" including new laws to establish a registration system and make it clear the tribunal can consider representatives' "capacity" when granting permission, plus a code of conduct.
The FWC has granted a worker an extension of time after its server "quarantined" his unfair dismissal claim email because of a "dangerous" attachment, but the Commission says that the issue will soon be remedied when it requires lodgement via an online form.
The FWC will include a "call to action" in letters to employers hit with unfair dismissal claims in a bid to improve response times, after last year subjecting respondents to a randomised control trial that garnered strong results for the approach.
Uber has repelled another attempt to establish that it is an employer, despite the FWC finding that a driver's relationship with the ride-sharing business was of "some magnitude".
