Fewer than 40% of employees use sick or carers leave to care for other people, according to a new survey of how employees balance work and caring responsibilities.
NSW IR Minister Jeff Shaw's amendments to his 1996 IR Act have handed employees and unions a powerful enhancement to existing anti-victimisation provisions, incorporating the equivalent federal provision's reverse onus of proof that has been used to great effect by unions against Patrick and other employers.
Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith's bill to ban pattern bargaining is now dead in the water, after the Democrats' party room today unanimously resolved to oppose it.
The Queensland Supreme Court has issued a permanent injunction stopping the CFMEU and its officials picketing a Rio Tinto coal mine, despite the picket ending nearly a year ago and the lack of any immediate threat of it resuming.
The IRC has reinstated a sacked wharfie and senior MUA delegate after accepting his undertaking that he would end "forever" his union activities that had given rise to conflict with his employer, P&O subsidiary Container Terminals Australia Limited.
NSW unions look likely to accept a State Government offer of a $1.50 an hour allowance to compensate 8,000 public sector workers whose workload will increase during the Sydney Olympics.
One of Australia's most influential employer organisations, the Business Council of Australia, wants the IRC to have a greater role in mediating bargaining disputes - a position that puts it in sharp contrast with the Government's desire to introduce competitive private mediation.
