The Commonwealth Bank has lost its Federal Court appeal against a ruling that it discriminated against employees moved to its CommSec subsidiary in breach of the pre-reform Workplace Relations Act, but a record penalty of $750,000 against it is likely to be cut to $450,000.
An ABS survey taken in May last year - before the full impact of Work Choices was felt - shows that registered individual deals such as AWAs have made little headway, covering just 3.1% of workers in the private sector and 2% in the public sector, while non-managers are earning 3.3% less under AWAs than they do under collective deals.
RailCorp New South Wales has been ordered not to take disciplinary action against an employee until his victimisation complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Board is decided.
Hockey to address National Press Club today; New way to make online submissions to Fair Pay Commission; No automatic liability for negligence by contractors, says High Court; and Casualisation of academic staff targeted by NTEU.
Prime Minister John Howard has used an address to the Menzies Research Centre this evening to paint the ascendant Labor Opposition as a captive of the union movement that would put pressure on interest rates by reinstating a centralised wage-setting system.
Shadow Small Business Minister Craig Emerson has told his party that there would be further consultation with small business before any announcement on unfair dismissal policy was made.
First the Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate found Heinemann Electric Pty Ltd was wrong to refuse to pay workers their ordinary time wages after they put on overtime bans during a bargaining dispute, now the OWS has launched legal action in the Federal Court to recover the employees' pay.
Some 6,500 Department of Immigration and Citizenship employees will receive a guaranteed 12.5% pay rise over three years under an agreement negotiated with the CPSU that is still to be put to a final vote.
Heinemann Electric Pty Ltd incorrectly interpreted the Work Choices prohibitions on strike payments when it refused to pay workers who engaged in protected bans on overtime, while the "counterproductive" laws were partly responsible for escalating the bargaining dispute into a 48-day strike, Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate Tony Lawrence has found.
Telstra will tomorrow try to convince an AIRC full bench that private arbitrations of disputes must be conducted in strict legal terms, largely without considering notions of industrial fairness.
