The FWC has called on employers to introduce a greater range of disciplinary options like fines and unpaid suspensions into agreements to avoid "inappropriately lenient or inappropriately harsh" responses to misconduct that are problematic for all parties concerned.
A proposed agreement struck with three maintenance workers prior to securing a major mining contract is back on the table after an FWC full bench overturned its rejection, finding its terms only required workers to perform preparatory duties in connection with the project to be covered by it.
A Senate inquiry has recommended passage of a bill that scraps mandatory four-yearly award review and has backed the FWC's proposal to backdate provisions allowing the tribunal to correct minor errors in bargaining notices.
An FWC full bench will next month deal with an attempt by the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union to intervene in a bid to terminate the 2011 Coles Supermarkets agreement, before a 10-day hearing of the substantive case in October.
The FWC has asked the Coalition to consider backdating its legislation to give the tribunal discretion to correct minor errors in bargaining notices, after a new regulation designed to reduce defects appears to have made things worse.
The bid to terminate the Coles Supermarkets enterprise agreement will be heard by an FWC full bench, after the Commission accepted that the 75,000-strong workforce it covered elevated the case to a "a matter of public significance because of its potentially broad economic and commercial effects."
The FWC's termination of industrial action in the Victorian electricity industry took into account that it could "almost immediately" affect generators that regularly meet more than half of the state's power supply.
As Murdoch University continues to press for termination of its enterprise agreement, its lawyers say an FWC decision upholding the sacking of an employee who used his work email to send abusive messages to the ABS illustrates the deal's outdated provisions.
The FWC will today hear Victorian IR Minister Natalie Hutchins' application to terminate industrial action at AGL Loy Yang's brown coal power station and mine.
