The SDA says it will be "going in to bat" for any permanent Woolworths employees wanting to switch to a four-day working week under a clause in the supermarket giant's new agreement, approved by a FWC full bench despite multiple RAFFWU and AMIEU objections that followed the latter's "misuse" of the company's in-house messaging platform.
In a significant decision on paid parental leave, a FWC presidential member has ordered a State-owned public transport provider to backpay a bus driver who claimed to be the primary carer of his newborn son while his wife recovered from an emergency caesarean section.
In a judgment that casts a harsh light on agreement drafting, a Federal Court majority has described crucial elements of a multinational paint company's since superseded deals as a "jumble of random terms", before quashing a finding that six misclassified warehouse workers had been underpaid.
The Federal Court has again intervened to turn down the heat in a continuing bargaining stoush between the CFMEU and the head contractor for Queensland's $7 billion Cross River Rail project, giving the union until Thursday to challenge orders imposing 15-metre no-go zones around sites and prohibiting the filming of workers crossing picket lines.
A FWC full bench has ruled on the agreed terms to be included in an intractable bargaining workplace determination under revised Closing Loopholes 2 Act criteria.
In a significant decision on FWC powers, a court has found that the Commission can dig into a university's finding that an academic plagiarised a student's work to establish whether it breached its agreement's disciplinary processes.
The FWC has laid bare the difficulty of running what amount to underpayment cases against universities, finding in a union-run matter that not only did the employer have no system in place to reliably record hours but that the tribunal lacked the power to order compensation anyway.
The CFMEU will seek to overturn a recent legal representation ruling, maintaining the FWC got it wrong when it allowed a construction company to have both a barrister and a paid agent appear on its behalf.
More than 300 employees of labour provider Workpac placed at Batchfire's Callide thermal coal mine near Biloela are set to receive increases in November of up to $20,000 a year, according to the MEU, after a FWC full bench made its first same-job, same-pay ruling today.
The FWC has approved an Aldi deal with undertakings that expunge labour hire clauses designed, according to the SDA, to circumvent "same-job, same-pay" laws.
