BHP coal workers in the Illawarra district of NSW have walked off the job for 72 hours and about 650 Queensland miners will do the same from tomorrow night - their second round of industrial action within a month in pursuit of a set of common claims.
The FSU is this morning seeking an interlocutory injunction from the Federal Court to stop the Commonwealth Bank offering AWAs, while the union has also announced its shareholder campaign in the lead-up to the bank's October 26 AGM.
The Geraldton Port Authority has engaged in a successful strategy to ensure that it isn't forced to offer MUA members overtime with other stevedores in the port, after the Federal Court declined to amend orders it made earlier this year to protect the union members.
The metal unions' Campaign 2001 will pursue a portable leave and severance entitlements scheme for all manufacturing employers and seek a new training levy from labour hire companies.
ASU NSW clerical and services branch secretary Alison Peters has been elected as a deputy assistant secretary of the NSW Labor Council, while LHMU NSW branch assistant secretary Ian West has been handed a seat in the NSW Upper House.
"New economy" factors such as increased computer use and growth of e-commerce could generate a second wave of labour productivity gains that would sustain the substantial gains in labour productivity achieved in the past decade, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The increase in skilled employment in the past two decades has been partly responsible for increased inequality of earnings, according to a new Productivity Commission paper.
An IRC full bench has varied piece rates for shearers despite non-adherence to the May safety net decision's process for fixing rates, but has rejected a bid for special consideration of the difficulties of enterprise bargaining in the pastoral industry.