Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane has thrown his weight behind further IR change, while new Treasury research says scrapping all IR regulation would boost labour productivity growth by 0.25% a year.
The bid by visiting medical officers in the ACT to form a new union has today been thrown out by the AIRC, which found they were ineligible because they were independent contractors.
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has sought to hose down claims that the party has softened its position on AWAs, telling Caucus this morning that ALP policy is unchanged.
Regulation of labour in Australia will get more complex, not simpler, under the Federal Government's proposed IR changes, according to Flinders University's Professor Andrew Stewart.
The NSW ALP is set to stiffen its resistance to the Howard Government's IR plans, with the party's State conference on the weekend to adopt a policy prohibiting companies holding contracts with Carr Government agencies from engaging workers under AWAs.
The leader of the union at the forefront of the major battles that followed the Coalition's first wave of IR change - the CFMEU's mining & energy division - says market forces will make stand-offs in the coal mining industry a lot less attractive for employers this time around, and it's employees of small to medium-sized businesses who will bear the brunt of the second wave laws.
With the CFMEU (construction division) in Victoria ready to start signing employers up to its new DEWR-endorsed deal, the Queensland building unions have abandoned their bid to go early, the CFMEU in WA has finally served its go-early claim, and the NSW MBA is still waiting for confirmation that the two agreements the CFMEU has put out are code-compliant.
Metals award most likely to stymie management, says IPA; Australia elected to ILO governing body; Nurses blame Working Women’s Centre closure on federal funds freeze; AWAs paying non-managers 2% less than certified agreements, says academic; and Senate committee says Cole legislation should be passed without amendment.