Employers engaging in protected AWA industrial action - such as lockouts - against employees are immune from the statutory ban on applying duress to employees, the Federal Court has ruled.
Two employees who refused offers of alternative employment when their employer merged with another company have failed to convince the NSW IRC that they were unfairly dismissed.
In an important victory for the future of industry superannuation funds, a full bench of the IRC has ruled that building awards can specify which funds employers have to contribute to for non-union as well as union workers.
In a landmark ruling on casual employment, a Federal Court full bench has found two regularly-rostered workers to be casuals because they were engaged on that basis.
The LHMU has used the Workplace Relations Act's anti-coercion provisions to win an interlocutory injunction restraining Coca-Cola Amatil from contracting out up to 50 jobs at its Clayton warehouse in Melbourne.
While Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith was this morning extolling the potential benefits of IR life under the Constitution's corporations power, one of Australia's leading labour lawyers was issuing a warning that heading down that path was unlikely to reduce the existing system's cost or complexity.
The labour hire industry will know in a little more than three months whether it will face the threat of hostile new regulations in New South Wales, after the State Government revealed the membership and terms of reference of its industry taskforce.
More than 100,000 managers and financial executives across a range of industries - including IR/HR, property services, accounting, consulting and mining - will in future have their minimum pay rates prescribed by awards and be covered by federal unfair dismissal laws for the first time following the registration of a new union.
Hundreds of CFMEU (mining & energy division) delegates will tomorrow march on the IRC's Sydney headquarters to protest against the Commission's decision to allow 10-hour shifts and, according to the union, to effectively freeze wages in the coal industry award.
