Family First Senator Steve Fielding today called for an inquiry into penalty rates, including how to compensate workers who could lose overtime and shift allowances under the Federal Government's second wave industrial legislation.
If the Howard Government blocks the ACTU's 2006 Living Wage claim, the Queensland Government might bring the states together to look at ways to ensure nationally-consistent rates of pay for workers remaining under the state systems, Queensland IR Minister Tom Barton said today.
In a reversal of the way the game is usually played - and something WA CFMEU (construction division) secretary, Kevin Reynolds, says has never happened to his union before - the John Holland Group has today initiated bargaining periods against the CFMEU on two projects in Perth.
Employment Advocate Peter McIlwain has threatened to remove one of the largest producers of AWAs in Australia from the OEA's specified partner program.
It's the big one that has largely slipped under the radar. Sandwiched between the Federal Government's tough Cole-based construction legislation and its looming second-wave laws, the Better Bargaining bill went through the Lower House last fortnight with no fanfare from the Government and with little comment from the unions. Yet the bill makes major changes to federal bargaining laws, including allowing for lawful union bargaining to be stopped mid-dispute, and severely limiting unions' ability to pursue common claims.
A full bench of the High Court - including new appointee, Justice Susan Crennan - will next month hear an appeal in the long-running Amery indirect discrimination case.
A bid by the CFMEU (construction and general division) to increase award rates for apprentices is to be referred to the AIRC President, Justice Geoffrey Giudice, after parties this morning failed to reach an agreement.
A showdown is looming over the ACTU's 2006 living wage claim, with unions committed to forging ahead with it while Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews insists that the 2005 safety net ruling will be the last.
The AWU is making an international issue of its four-month-old dispute at Boeing's RAAF maintenance base at Williamtown in NSW by linking it with a strike by 18,000 Boeing aircraft machinists in the United States.