Catherwood LibraryILR School

There is consideration by both the Australian government and the Australian mining union to exclude specialty and short-term contractors from the proposed same job, same pay laws that would apply to the mining industry and other labor-intensive industries. Same job, same pay laws state that labor hires and contractors would receive the same compensation as employees from the main workforce. There has been increasing support to exclude contractors that are hired to do specialty work, or contractors that are hired for temporary work from the same job, from the same pay laws. However, there is concern that companies could take advantage of the exclusion and categorize long-term contractors as specialty and short-term contractors, allowing them to decrease wages and pay workers less. The Australian government is determining if the same job, same pay laws should require multifactor tests to accurately differentiate between long-term labor hires and specialty/short-term hires.