The Prime Minister John Howard today continued to insist that conditions such as public holidays and smokos would not be scrapped under his second wave IR laws, despite this clearly being at odds with the package he announced to Parliament in May.
The Victorian Government says it will use its position as an employer to protect award conditions for more than 250,000 State public sector workers from the Federal Government's second wave IR changes.
The Federal Court will today begin hearing a case that will consider whether union shareholder campaigns against public companies could breach the coercion provisions of the Workplace Relations Act.
The AIRC has increased Victorian Minimum Wage Orders for workers under Schedule 1A of the WRA in 18 industry sectors by $17 a week, in line with this year's Safety Net Review.
Work and family parliamentary inquiry starts; IR campaign likely for new US-style on-line organisation; and AWU claims unfair dismissal over sub-award wages and conditions.
Increase of 13.5% over three years for Victorian ambulance service employees; Victorian police threaten industrial action while leader denies joining Liberal Party; Building Taskforce to appeal Pine v Doyle ruling; and Beazley pledges to give minimum wage-setting back to the AIRC.
Just six weeks after saying that the ALP's policy on scrapping AWAs was unchanged, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley today told journalists that "we are going to abolish the capacity of Australian Workplace Agreements to undermine collective awards".
The Prime Minister, John Howard, today said it was "nonsense" to suggest the Federal Government's IR reforms would "chisel" workers out of Anzac Day, Christmas Day or other public holidays, but refused to say how they would be protected.
The High Court has today refused on technical grounds to issue an interlocutory injunction to stop the Howard Government continuing its spending on a $20 million advertising campaign to promote its second wave IR changes.
The Victorian construction industry's go-early agreement has today been ticked off by DEWR as code compliant, while the CFMEU (NSW branch) has redrafted its latest pattern deal to address DEWR-identified breaches. In both states, the agreements retain provisions that the department warns "may cause breaches through their practical application".