A Queensland employer, backed by the State's peak employer body, has effectively avoided arbitration of a planned union agreement by the State's IRC, after refusing to negotiate with the AMWU.
Some 60,000 public school and TAFE teachers in NSW will on Wednesday vote on whether to accept a new three-year award that provides pay rises of between 9% and 13% over three years.
No delay for IR legislation, says Andrews; Government confirms unemployed to lose benefits for refusing sub-award jobs; Blog obtains WorkChoices call centre script; and Raising minimum wages not the best cure for poverty, says academic.
Only a "limited category" of state public sector employees will be immune from the federal IR laws, and union bids to seek state safe-havens are therefore unlikely to be effective, according to a WA lawyer.
In reasons for decision handed down today, a High Court majority has found the DEWR could lawfully spend public money on the Howard Government's advertising campaign for the second wave IR changes.
In his final annual report before the institution he heads goes under the Federal Government's knife, the President of the AIRC, Justice Geoffrey Giudice, has acknowledged it was difficult to forecast the Commission's role and workload for the year ahead.
The AWU has shifted a group of Tasmanian public servants onto a State award, in what is expected to be the start of a rush by unions to protect their state public sector members from the Howard Government's second wave IR changes.
Allowances to be cut and "frozen", unions claim; Casual loadings could be reduced, says lawyer; award review taskforce deadline "a nonsense"; no more $25m payouts for Rio Tinto; and Melbourne Cup Day for WorkChoices, says PM.
BankWest will pay an annual increase of up to 4.5%, under a new two-year deal with the FSU that the bank's 2,500 employees will vote on late this month.
The Federal Court has upheld a tax office ruling imposing fringe beneftis tax (FBT) on employer contributions to the building industry redundancy fund, Incolink.
