Esso Australia has applied to terminate two important enterprise agreements at its Bass Strait oil and gas operations, becoming the latest big employer to use what one union has dubbed the "sledgehammer approach" to break a bargaining deadlock.
A group of leading IR academics has made a preemptive strike against any attempt to use the Coalition's "freedoms" inquiry to diminish the immunity from common law liability conferred by the Fair Work Act's protected industrial action provisions.
The Productivity Commission in a new report has repeated its call for governments to adopt Victorian-style procurement guidelines to regulate substandard IR conduct in the construction industry, but has warned they might need to be modified to avoid a clash with the Fair Work Act.
