Regulating Enforcement of Workers' Entitlements in Australia: The New Dimension of Individualisation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relationship between individualisation strategies and how enforcement of workers' entitlements is regulated in Australia. The legislative framework in the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cwlth) as amended by the Work Choices Act 2005 (Cwlth) restricts the ability of unions and individual workers to enforce entitlements. At the same time, federal agencies have withdrawn from effective enforcement against non-compliant employers and stepped up their enforcement actions against unions, either in support of employers or in their stead. Enforcement of workers' entitlements is now regulated in ways calculated to support and further the objectives of individualisation, with such enforcement emerging as a distinct dimension of individualisation in its own right.