Howard praises AWU as ALP's Smith defends IR role; Public unlikely to accept guest worker programs: Report; Jobs data signals migration to online job advertising; Wage growth to "remain firm" but won't accelerate: RBA; Treasurer refuses Workplace Express access to Budget lock-up; and John Irving new secretary of NSW Teachers Federation.
The Huon Corporation today won a postponement of union meetings at its Empire Rubber auto parts plant in central Victoria after applying for an order against industrial action under s496 of the Work Choices Act.
The AMWU today won an order for a strike vote in the AIRC's first ruling on a contested secret ballot application for industrial action under the Work Choices Act.
Both Queensland and WA today appeared to make headway in the States' and unions' High Court IR challenge - Queensland with its argument that the corporations power couldn't regulate activities outside those that defined a corporation as such, and WA with its submission that the Work Choices exclusion of state and territory laws went too far.
Victoria this morning told the High Court that the Work Choices amendments should be found invalid because the Constitution's labour power limits the operation of the corporations power, on which the new laws are founded.
Unions NSW this afternoon targeted the Work Choices laws on registered organisations when it became the third party to appear in the state/union High Court challenge to the Federal Government's IR legislation.
AIRC Vice President Michael Lawler today ordered the first secret ballot for industrial action under the Work Choices Act, following a successful application by the CFMEU.
In a response to the strictures imposed by the federal Work Choices regime, NSW's Iemma Government is planning to extend union right of entry for OHS purposes.
The NSW Government this afternoon argued before the High Court's seven-member full bench that the Constitution's corporation power did not have the reach to support the Federal Government's Work Choices legislation.
A record 39 barristers fronted the High Court in Canberra today, as the states and unions began their six-day constitutional challenge to the Work Choices legislation.
