The AEU has described the Federal Government's latest announcement on performance pay for teachers as "a desperate attempt to get AWAs into schools and impose the Federal Government's IR laws on teachers", but the Opposition has down-played it as electioneering.
Wage increases in private sector collective agreements have dropped in the first year of Work Choices from 4% a year to 3.5%, despite unemployment reaching near-record lows and a booming economy.
A full bench of the Federal Court has overturned an earlier finding that the CFMEU's WA construction branch and two officials breached the no extra claims clause in a construction agreement - accepting that workers went on strike against the union's advice.
The AiG told the Senate committee inquiry into the fairness test legislation today that s355 of the Workplace Relations Act should be repealed to allow employers to "call up" previous awards or instruments in future agreements.
The NSW IRC today handed down a $20-a-week increase in award rates, but increased the state's minimum wage by $27, bringing the minimum Award Review Classification Rate for full time employees to $531.40 per week. Monetary allowances and junior rates will increase by 4%.
Major holes in the Coalition's fairness test are continuing to emerge, with the SDA claiming today - in an argument that would apply to other sectors predominantly state-covered before Work Choices - that the new legislation allows retail employers covered by NAPSAs to offer AWAs that remove all protected award conditions.
The minimalist AWA covering "Billy" highlighted by Prime Minister John Howard when he announced the WorkChoices package in 2005 would fail the fairness test, unless there were exceptional circumstances, DEWR officials told a Senate committee this morning.
The proposed fairness test would effectively eliminate the use of AWAs for on-hire employment by recruitment agencies, according to the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association.
The Coalition's proposed fairness test leaves unclear whether employers would be able to offer entitlements that employees already had as "fair compensation" for conditions that were taken away, according to Flinders University's Professor Andrew Stewart.
