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.
Directions hearings that were set down for today in Email's Federal Court bid to derail pattern bargaining at a corporate level have now been adjourned until December.
With the Olympics now consuming Sydney, the city's IR courts and tribunals have all sought to avoid logistical problems by listing urgent matters only.