Oil and gas companies are pushing the federal government to introduce special greenfields agreements lasting more than five years for "major" projects involving at least $50m in capital spending and to boost certainty by giving employers an automatic right to an arbitrated extension of the deals.
A company granted a broad Victorian Supreme Court order to curb a picket line at its warehouse remains at loggerheads with the NUW over its push for a new enterprise agreement.
Ahead of a full Federal Court hearing next month of Toyota's appeal against a ruling that it breached its enterprise agreement when it pushed for changes, the FWC has found that a "no extra claims" clause in a Tasmanian energy agreement is invalid and therefore no barrier to the employer's application to vary the deal.
A five-member full bench of the Fair Work Commission has ruled that employers can validly give extra information to employees at the same time as providing them with a bargaining representation notice, as long as it doesn't form part of the notice.
The Federal Court has overturned a ruling by the Federal Circuit Court that paint manufacturer Wattyl did not breach its enterprise agreement when it directed employees to take annual leave during a production scale-down in 2012.
The Federal Court has held that the Fair Work Commission can't refuse to approve agreements because they would undermine collective bargaining, in the latest ruling on the John Holland deal covering just three workers.
The Coalition has warned public servants there will be "minimal capacity for wage increases" in bargaining to replace 114 enterprise agreements covering 165,000 employees that are due to expire on June 30.
Private sector agreements approved in the December quarter provided average pay rises of 3.6% a year, slightly up on the 3.5% annual increase recorded in the September quarter, according to Department of Employment data released today.
The Fair Work Commission has held that the "genuinely trying" test is not a "moral" code and has granted the MUA protected ballot orders despite accepting that an employer was "rightly aggrieved" by its bargaining conduct.
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