GLAA Employee Login
GLAA
  • Report Problems: 0800 432 0804
  • General Office Enquiries: 0345 602 5020
  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • What we do
    • Our Aims and Objectives
    • Consultations
    • The GLAA Board
    • Legislation
    • Vacancies
    • Modern slavery
    • Freedom of Information
    • Press Releases
    • Better regulation
    • Trade union facility time
    • Our partners
    • Board Minutes and Papers 2021
  • What's New
    • Latest press releases
    • Press Release Archive
    • Latest news and guidance
    • Freedom of information requests
    • Parliamentary Questions
    • GLAA Newsletters
  • I am a...
    • I am a worker
    • I supply workers
    • I use workers
  • Our Impact
    • Who has a GLAA licence
    • How we inspect and prosecute
    • Who has been inspected
    • Revocations results
    • Appeals against the GLAA
    • Criminal offences and sanctions
    • Conviction totals
    • Performance Reports
  • Publications
    • GLAA Publication Scheme
    • Resources
    • Licensing guidance
    • GLAA Brief and Licensing News
    • Legislation
    • Corporate Publications
    • Implementation of the Regulators Code Principles
    • Labour Exploitation
  • Contact Us
  • Report Issues
    • English
    • Bulgarian
    • Latvian
    • Lithuanian
    • Polish
    • Portuguese
    • Romanian
    • Slovak
  • Coronavirus (COVID19) - what you need to do
  • What's New
  • Press Release Archive
  • GLAA contributes to laws protecting workers in Australia

GLAA contributes to laws protecting workers in Australia

5th July 2018

Two Australian states have passed legislation to create a licensing scheme following public consultations to which the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) contributed its licensing experience.

Both Queensland and Victoria will operate licensing schemes for labour providers in an effort to protect workers’ rights and target unscrupulous employers who exploit their staff.

Providers of labour hire services in both states will be required to hold a licence and businesses wishing to use labour hire workers will have to only use licensed providers.

Licence providers themselves will be required to pass a “fit and proper person test” and will be listed on a public register.

Newly established organisations will investigate compliance and operators breaching the scheme will potentially face civil penalties and criminal prosecutions.

GLAA Director of Strategy Darryl Dixon, who has been in regular contact with colleagues in both states over much of the last year, said: “I was pleased to contribute to this debate and share the expertise we have with our counterparts in Australia. Our involvement has shown that the GLAA is not simply a UK-wide organisation. We aim to work with partners wherever they are based across the world in bringing an end to labour abuse.

“I will certainly be interested to see how the licensing schemes in Queensland and Victoria evolve as it may provide us with ideas on how we can improve ourselves and better tackle exploitation in the workplace.”

The regimes will be similar to the GLAA’s licensing scheme which was introduced following the Morecambe Bay tragedy in 2004, when 23 Chinese cockle pickers drowned through the behaviour of a criminal gangmaster.

Any employment agency, labour provider or gangmaster who provides workers for agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering or any associated processing and packaging needs a GLAA licence.

It is a criminal offence to supply workers without a licence or use an unlicensed labour provider.

Click here to return to the top of the page

© 2021 Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority

  • Privacy & Cookies
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Accessibility
  • Sitemap

Powered by 10 Digital