Victorian ETU members have voted to endorse the union's controversial agreement with NECA, despite DEWR's withdrawal of its code-compliant status after the Federal Government this month widened its guidelines to cover prohibited content in unregistered side deeds.
The ACTU's application to flow on the AFPC's $27.36 minimum wage rise to 300,000 or so transitional employees will be before the AIRC for mention on Monday, after the Commission froze the case last year to await the new wage-setting body's decision.
Michael Harmer, chair of law firm Harmers Workplace Lawyers, has turned on the Howard Government over Work Choices' drastic erosion of unfair dismissal rights, saying the change is "not only going to cost livelihoods, it will cost lives".
Yesterday's High Court judgment upholding the Work Choices laws downplayed the practical implications of expanded federal regulation in favour of a textual legal analysis, according to Corrs Chambers Westgarth Partner Iain Ross, a former Vice President of the AIRC.
The Labor States are planning further legislative resistance to Work Choices following today's High Court ruling rejecting their constitutional challenge to the laws.
The five-member High Court majority interpreted the Constitution's corporations power widely when it this morning dismissed in its entirety the States/unions' challenge to the validity of the Federal Government's Work Choices laws.
The High Court has this morning by a 5 to 2 majority dismissed the States' and unions' challenge to the constitutional validity of Work Choices, upholding the legislation in its entirety.
More changes to Work Choices could be on the way, Prime Minister John Howard said today, after his Government announced "finetuning" of Work Choices, including new stand-down and sick leave cashing-out measures.
The secrecy rules surrounding the AIRC's dispute resolution role under Work Choices have created "great difficulty in tracking decisions," a senior member of the Commission said today.
The Federal Government today announced changes to its Work Choices laws designed to reverse unintended consequences of the legislation it said would benefit both employers and workers.
