The NSW IRC appears set to boost its full-time membership to six following the appointment of two new commissioners, one a former union official and the other currently heading up a poker machine lobby group.
Victoria's Andrews Labor Government has allocated $9.6 million to develop a new "fast track model" for hearing wage theft cases in the State's Magistrates' Court.
Requests by two HR consultancies to extend coronavirus-driven award variations providing more flexibility to work from home have prompted the FWC to expand the window for submissions on its provisional view that the measures should be wound up.
The Attorney-General's Department is examining the implications of a corporate restructuring last year which saw the taxpayer-funded Fair Entitlements Guarantee liable for about $40 million in employee entitlement claims.
Qantas says it will apply a two-year wage freeze in the next round of enterprise agreements across the group, followed by 2% annual pay increases instead of the current 3%.
The ACTU's latest submission to the FWC's minimum wage panel has seized on Federal Budget forecasts that wage growth will lag behind inflation until 2024-25, arguing it is a "mystery" who else has the power to influence that trajectory.
The ANMF has filed a work value application seeking a 25% increase for nurses, nursing assistants and personal care workers in residential and home-based aged care after the FWC refused to delay the HSU's work value case to provide more time for collaboration.
The ABS has delivered a small boost to hopes that wages growth might exceed restrained government projections after today's quarterly figures showed an annual lift of 1.5% across the economy.
The Morrison Government has cut back funding for the Fair Entitlements Guarantee in the 2021-22 Federal Budget, but still expects an increase in claims as COVID-19 support for business is wound back and more employers go into liquidation.
The RBA has slightly raised its wage growth forecast, noting that it will almost entirely be driven by the private sector as public sector wage caps remain in effect.
