Employers in the metals sector could see the stridency of the enterprise bargaining campaigns in Victoria extend to the rest of the country if the AMWU's militant Workers First faction is successful in toppling the union's national and Victorian leadership in upcoming elections.
Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith and Conservative state governments are proposing a living wage increase of $8 up to C10 level ($447.20) in the metals award - a third of the $24 sought by the ACTU.
A Queensland company is appealing to the State's Court of Appeal to halt the first test of the Qld IR Act's controversial provisions to deem contractors as employees.
In a new union strategy to boost recruitment, the fourth biggest job agency in the Federal Government's Job Network, Jobfutures, will earn a $25 fee from NSW unions every time it places an employee in a job and signs them up as a union member.
AMWU Victorian branch metals division secretary Craig Johnston remains determined to win an industry-wide settlement after the AIG's rejection of the MTFU's pattern bargaining claim.
GST-linked "inflation clauses" are absent from all but one of seventeen Federal enterprise agreements covering 500 employees or more that were registered in the final quarter of 1999.