The Offshore Alliance and ETU are up in arms after Bechtel warned them that unless they drop their "intractable" 30% wage demands for the Pluto Train 2 Project by Monday, it will bar them from bargaining meetings and deal only with the AMWU and CFMEU.
Victoria's Catholic school teachers and support staff have rejected a non-union agreement offer, while the IEU says support is growing for its application for a single interest bargaining authorisation through which it is seeking to secure a statewide deal.
The IEU has filed a "historic" single interest bargaining authorisation application to force Victoria's Catholic school bosses to negotiate a sector-wide deal, while the employer peak body is today awaiting feedback on an offer put directly to teachers and support staff.
Workers at Woodside's Pluto 2 LNG expansion in the Pilbara have overwhelmingly voted down head contractor Bechtel's proposed agreement, while Rio Tinto's Paraburdoo iron ore workers are set to receive a pay rise, announced shortly after unions kicked-off their majority support campaign.
The Western Mine Workers Alliance is considering industrial action at BHP Iron Ore's South Flank and Area C sites in the Pilbara, after the company put forward a draft "baseline" agreement that fails to provide any annual increases, which unions claim is "extremely rare" in the sector.
The ETU's WA branch is pushing to bargain for a separate agreement for continuing electrical, instrumentation or plumbing workers at the massive Pluto 2 LNG expansion, to uncouple from employees who will be demobilised as the construction phase ends, and is urging workers to vote down a pay offer that "does not pass the pub test".
The NSWNMA has secured its first private sector IBD, after it agreed to a 16% pay rise over four years for Healthscope nurses and midwives, but remained at an impasse on annual leave provisions.
The MEAA has rejected an ABC deal that would have provided a 3% interim pay rise while prohibiting employees from taking industrial action for six-months while they push for 5.5% pay rises each year and a guarantee that AI will not replace human workers.
The ACTU has renewed its call to remove or curb employers' ability to lock out their workforces, after a multinational mining company extended to almost three weeks its freeze on mineworkers returning to the job at an Illawarra coal pit.
The MEU says its members at a Peabody underground coal mine near Wollongong have been "blindsided" by the company's week-long lockout of 160 mineworkers, saying it is a disproportionate response to limited protected action.
