Highlights from FLEX and TUC Webinar on Australia’s Workplace Justice Visa

Our team attended the Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) webinar on the Workplace Justice Visa on Tuesday 29th September 2026. 

We heard from brilliant speakers including — Hesen Jeong (Australian Congress of Trade Unions), Matt Kunkel (Migrant Work Centre, Australia) and Narmada Thiranagama (Unison, UK), co-chaired by, Peter Wieltschnig (Trade Union Congress, UK). 

During the webinar, we heard how the Workplace Justice Visa is helping challenge labour exploitation and improve workers’ access to redress in Australia, and why a similar provision is urgently needed in the UK! 

In recent years, the British government has committed to strengthening workers' rights and protections, through the Employment Rights Act and the Fair Work Agency. However, these reforms will remain practically inaccessible to many workers with insecure immigration status, who cannot currently report abuse or participate in enforcement action without putting their right to live and work in the UK at risk.

The Workplace Justice Visa provides a pro-active and practical solution to this problem, enabling all workers, irrespective of immigration status, to speak up, seek redress and tackle exploitation. Now is the time for the UK to follow Australia's lead! 

One of the panelists Narmada Thiranagama who leads on employment rights policy and immigration policy for UNISON put it so well: 

“A Workplace Justice Visa would expressly pick up the kinds of exploitation that run through the labour market as if through a stick of Brighton Rock. We badly need to give migrant workers access to the employment rights that everyone else can expect. This government has an ambitious employment rights agenda, which Unison fully supports. But excluding migrant workers from that agenda cannot be right."

John McDonnell MP will be tabling an amendment for a UK Workplace Justice visa to the Immigration and Asylum Bill 2026 which we at FLEX have worked on. This is a significant opportunity to build support for this measure.

For further reading on Australia’s Workplace Justice visa, please see the policy brief “A little light in the Darkness: Qualitative outcomes of the Workplace Justice Visa” by the Migrant Workers’ Centre in Australia.

Also the Labour Exploitation Advisory Group (LEAG) briefing: “Fair for all Workers: How learning from Australia’s Workplace Justice Visa can support access to workers’ rights in the UK”. 

If you missed the webinar, you can find a recording here, and a copy of Hesen’s slides can be viewed here.