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The International Labour Organisation has upheld an ACTU complaint that the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act breaches ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining.

The AIRC has defied the Howard Government by deciding to proceed on a "provisional" basis with the ACTU's national wage case application for a 4% increase in federal award rates.

The Howard Government could achieve a simpler and more comprehensive national IR system by broadening the constitutional basis of workplace laws beyond the corporations power, including restructuring the AIRC to jettison the negative legacy of its constitutional underpinnings while retaining the positive aspects, according to Victorian academics.

The Work Choices provisions allowing employers to require medical certificates for any period of illness will have even wider application than many practitioners believe, DEWR evidence in the IR Senate inquiry today confirmed.

It has received the bulk of the changes it has lobbied for, but AMMA this morning told the Senate IR inquiry that while it supported the legislation, it was "not perfect", and it would like to see further amendments.

A group of 151 labour market and legal academics from 26 Australian universities have warned that the Work Choices bill will worsen inequality without meeting the needs to increase productivity and skills development or respond to the ageing of the workforce or the increasing caring responsibilities of employees.

The AWU today urged the Senate inquiry into the Work Choices legislation to address a series of "unintended consequences" in the bill during a fiery session in which national secretary Bill Shorten accused the Coalition of misleading workers and fended off jibes about his own political ambitions.

Big companies such as PBL and Patrick, which each have more than a hundred subsidiaries, will be able under Work Choices to lawfully avoid the new 100-employee unfair dismissal threshold by moving their employees into entities employing fewer than 100 workers, Australia's largest union told the Senate inquiry into the legislation yesterday.

The Catholic Church has proposed amendments to the Work Choices bill to require the new Fair Pay Commission to provide a fair safety net for low-paid workers and to include overtime, penalty rates and meal breaks in the new Fair Pay and Conditions Standard.

Women will not be able to individually bargain for paid maternity leave and it will decline as an entitlement under the Work Choices legislation, federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward today told the IR Senate inquiry today.