A Senate inquiry is inviting submissions on a Bill designed to ensure the Albanese Government's funding for a 15% work value pay rise for early childhood educators is passed on to the workers while avoiding major fee hikes, but a legislation scrutiny committee has questioned a lack of "oversight".
After Wilmar Sugar rejected a FWC recommendation to offer a 21.33% pay rise over four years, workers at its Queensland mills have narrowly voted up a three-year deal providing a 16% increase, plus a $2500 sign-on sweetener.
The FWC has refused an application from a BHP Hunter Valley coal mine to transfer an employee - and future workers with similar circumstances - from the company's WA iron ore operations.
A FWC member has refused to be drawn into a dispute between a private rail freight operator and the RTBU over whether a remote locality allowance should be calculated on travel by road or "as the crow flies", concluding that she could not disentangle conflicting versions about its inclusion in an agreement.
A parliamentary inquiry has recommended the Albanese Government consider amending the Fair Work Act's right to request flexible work to ensure menopausal women can access it, while it also wants reproductive leave added to the NES and awards.
The Health Services Union has won 12 days paid reproductive leave in a deal for about 1600 disability service workers, in a "watershed" development it says could be expanded nationwide, as it bargains to entrench the entitlement in five further agreements.
A FWC senior member has warned Virgin Australia pilots that if they reject a recommended offer, including what the TWU says is a "historic" pay boost of up to 21% over three years and a sign-on bonus, it will create "further uncertainty and prevent substantive pay increases" for all.
NSW nurses and midwives have defied a tribunal's anti-strike orders, telling its members the State Government has left them with "no choice but to fight".
