The AIRC has refused to certify a non-union agreement because of the employer's failure to notify employees of their right to be represented by a union, but has excused errors and omissions in other deals.
An order issued by the AIRC President Justice Geoffrey Giudice on Thursday staying the redundancies of 80 employees of The Age's Spencer Street printing facility was effectively reversed when the AMWU won a Federal Court injunction on Thursday night.
The NSW IRC has found that a State Government area health service breached the State's Workplace Video Surveillance Act when it conducted a "Keystone Cops" investigation of security officers it believed had been absent from their workplace without authorisation.
The Queensland Government has temporarily averted strike action by the State's 3000-plus electricity distribution workers by agreeing to give ETU members a say in a review of the state's electrical system, after the last in a series of storms saw more than 100,000 Queensland homes without power last weekend.
Unions can justifiably claim they have arrested their decline, after the ABS released figures confirming the number of union members has risen for the third time in four years, while the proportion of members has remained steady at 23%.
The Queensland MBA has called pre-strike ballots "insane" and given support to pattern bargaining and a stronger role for the IRC during the ongoing Senate building and construction industry inquiry.
Despite ongoing efforts from employer groups and the CFMEU (construction division) to resolve the issue, only weeks remain before employers with unregistered agreements are caught by the new requirement to pay fringe benefits tax on contributions to employee entitlement funds.
In a bold new move to reposition the AWU, the union is tonight re-launching its venerable The Australian Worker magazine as a consumer magazine that will be sold in newsagents and mailed to members.
The Senate's inquiry into poverty has recommended a new minimum wage benchmark, a wide-ranging inquiry into low-paid employment, stronger rights for labour hire and regular casual workers and new efforts to end the growth in the "working poor".
