Ahead of the October 26 State election, Queensland unions are set to launch a campaign today to lift the current public sector parental leave entitlement of 15 weeks to 18 weeks, plus an extra eight weeks for workers with five years service.
Unions have called for a consumer boycott of cheeses made by Canadian-owned food giant Saputo, as they push for pay parity between a group of Tasmanian maintenance workers and their mainland counterparts.
The AWU has abandoned a long history of going it alone in Queensland, re-affiliating with the State's peak union body, while the Mining and Energy Union has also returned to the fold after a shorter absence.
The MEU has filed 10 "same-job, same-pay" applications targeting BHP coal mines in Queensland, seeking to lift the pay of about 1700 labour hire workers by between $10,000 and $40,000 a year and stamp out a model that has "spread like a cancer" in the industry.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus has declared "it's time” for unions to jettison their three-decades-old defensive stance and boldly take advantage of Labor’s IR law reforms to rebuild membership.
A "broad coalition" of unions will call at this week's ACTU Congress in Adelaide for the peak group to press the Albanese Labor Government to legislate next year to insert 10 days reproductive health leave into the NES, according to key affiliate the Queensland Council of Unions.
Ramsay Health Care has used competition laws to win orders restraining a ANMF advertising campaign, after the Federal Court accepted it had an arguable case that the union made false and misleading clams that might damage the company's reputation and scare off patients.
