Casuals, contractors and gig workers set for 'potentially massive' changes under Labor

Work is going to change for millions of Australians. Key points: Labor will make job security a key aim of laws and processes around work Gig workers may get expanded protections and "employee-like" conditions There is little detail about the proposals With the election campaign focused on issues as disparate as the cost of living, China’s growing regional influence and transgender women playing sport, you might have missed it — but the incoming Labor government has promised a radical overhaul of an employment system it says is letting workers down. Creating this new class of ''employee-like'' worker — such as contractors dependent on a particular business — could see those workers get minimum conditions and bargain collectively for new entitlements. ACTU secretary Sally McManus has pointed to so-called "gig economy" workers and a definition of insecure work as "that which provides workers with little social and economic security, and little control over their working lives". Former fair work ombudsman Natalie James found many so-called independent contractors were "genuinely autonomous" self-employed workers with the ability to choose how they toiled.