The crucial issue of whether awards and agreements carry over when work is outsourced is to be determined by a full bench of the High Court, after the Court this morning granted a chemist special leave to appeal an earlier Federal Court ruling.
The ACTU has defended its claim that union members earn substantially more than non-members, despite a National Institute of Labor Studies (NILS) finding that the difference arises mainly because of low membership rates among part-time workers.
In another blow against outsourcing, the Community and Public Sector Union has won a Federal Court ruling that employees transferred from the former CES to Employment National are entitled to the wages and conditions provided under the awards and agreements applying to the former agency.
An IRC full bench has introduced new award shift penalty arrangements to curtail deliberate tailoring of work patterns by employers to avoid paying penalty rates.
The CFMEU has failed in its attempt to gain access to Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith's letter to Prime Minister John Howard about the Federation Square project in Melbourne.
Telstra's ability to select employees for the 10,000 jobs it plans to shed will continue to be fettered by a 1993 redundancy agreement, after a Federal Court full bench threw out a bid to pare back the deal under award simplification provisions.
The NSW Education Department and the Teachers Federation are nearing a settlement, with a spokesperson for the Federation saying "we're getting close but we're not there yet".
