It's an unusual compulsory conference if the employers aren't invited, but that was the case yesterday when the WA Employment Minister, John Kobelke, had the state branch of the CFMEU (construction division) and Unions WA before the State IRC, citing their alleged use of, or support for, the blue flu.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet today drew on the Federal Government commitment to "choice" in agreement-making to call for the introduction of a collective bargaining right at Australian workplaces where the majority of employees wanted a collective deal - similar to rights already in place in the UK, Canada, and the US.
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has today announced a new workplace watchdog to advise and protect workers in the State who are considering signing individual and collective deals under the Howard Government's proposed deregulated agreement-making regime.
A WA court has found it is not in the public interest for a commercial television station to dramatise the Howard Government's second wave IR changes by airing a covert recording of an employer allegedly explaining that he sacked an employee due to her pregnancy.
The AIRC has roped three major contract call centre companies into a safety net award that extends minimum standards across one of Australia's fastest-growing outsourcing industries.
Liberal backbencher Andrew Robb, who is heading the Howard Government's committee to sell the second wave IR changes to the public, today drew on his experience in bitter industrial disputes when he was head of the National Farmers Federation to make the case for further "evolutionary" deregulation of the labour market.
The Federal Government's right to recover funds advanced to insolvent companies to pay employee entitlements under its GEERS scheme has been thrown into doubt by a Federal Court decision.
Mitsubishi is pioneering a new way of managing its temporary labour pool, with casual workers' loadings being accrued into a fund they can use if they need time off.
In the latest skirmish between John Holland and the CFMEU (construction division), the Federal Court yesterday refused the company's application for an injunction and secondary boycott damages over industrial action on a tram-track replacement project in Melbourne's CBD.
Parliament's heavy legislative programme means some of the Federal Government's IR bills listed for this week won't now be looked at again until, at the earliest, the sitting period beginning September 5.
