Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith's bill to ban pattern bargaining is now dead in the water, after the Democrats' party room today unanimously resolved to oppose it.
The Queensland Supreme Court has issued a permanent injunction stopping the CFMEU and its officials picketing a Rio Tinto coal mine, despite the picket ending nearly a year ago and the lack of any immediate threat of it resuming.
The IRC has reinstated a sacked wharfie and senior MUA delegate after accepting his undertaking that he would end "forever" his union activities that had given rise to conflict with his employer, P&O subsidiary Container Terminals Australia Limited.
NSW unions look likely to accept a State Government offer of a $1.50 an hour allowance to compensate 8,000 public sector workers whose workload will increase during the Sydney Olympics.
One of Australia's most influential employer organisations, the Business Council of Australia, wants the IRC to have a greater role in mediating bargaining disputes - a position that puts it in sharp contrast with the Government's desire to introduce competitive private mediation.
A full bench of the IRC has stepped into the aged care debate, awarding private aged care nurses in the Northern Territory a substantial pay increase, but acknowledging their employers will have difficulty providing it because of precarious funding arrangements.
The Democrats have confirmed that the Government's pattern bargaining Bill as it stands is unlikely to get their support in the Senate committee report being handed down today, with IR spokesperson Senator Andrew Murray yesterday issuing a media release expressing concern with the legislation's wide implications.
The unionised half of BHP's Pilbara iron ore workforce will go out for 24 hours on Wednesday June 7 after the company rejected a collective agreement proposal from unions that largely mirrors the terms of the company's staff contracts.
Just when super-unions have gone out of fashion, the two big transport organisations, the Transport Workers Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union, have revealed plans to merge into what would be one of Australia's most powerful and strategically-placed unions.
