Wesfarmers Premier Coal's challenge to the lawfulness of industrial action by the AMWU's WA branch, which will be heard by the Federal Court early next month, is set to be the next key case on the implementation of the High Court's Electrolux ruling following Friday's Ballantyne decision.
Stephen Smith is Federal Labor's new Shadow IR minister, while new frontbencher Tanya Plibersek is taking on the newly-created position of work and family spokesperson, as the Opposition faces a barrage of IR legislation from the Howard Government.
The proposed 20-employee threshold for exempting small businesses from federal unfair dismissal laws is too high and five employees would be a more appropriate limit, while Electrolux shows the High Court has lost its understanding of labour law, according to Sydney University Dean of Law Ron McCallum.
The "so-called" black letter lawyers in the High Court's Electrolux majority took a misdirected, unbalanced activist approach that amounted to them acting like a "blind assassin", according to former senior AIRC member Paul Munro.
The former ALP Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, has made a "genuine plea" to the Howard Government to reconsider what "appears to be its intention" to take Australia down a more confrontationist and less socially cohesive road.
In the decision IR practitioners have been sweating on, the AIRC has rejected employer-group arguments that a raft of provisions in a comprehensive NUW agreement do not pertain to the employment relationship, allowing clauses covering a prohibition on offering AWAs, site rates for casual labour hire workers, union right of entry, trade union training leave, and paid leave for union delegates.
The Federal Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, this morning began sketching out a road-map for the coming IR changes, making it clear that the AIRC's role, independent contractors' legislation and a unitary unfair dismissal system were high on the Howard Government's fourth term agenda.
Kevin Andrews will continue as Workplace Relations Minister, as the fourth-term Howard Government readies itself to implement its IR agenda unfettered by the Senate.
The High Court's Justice Michael Kirby has praised the role conciliation and arbitration have played in shaping Australia and has rejected calls to weaken or abolish the AIRC, maintaining there is "no room in this nation for industrial ayatollahs".
