Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie today introduced a private members' bill to prevent the Fair Work Commission from agreeing to employer requests to terminate expired enterprise agreements that leave workers worse off.
The FWC looks set to reduce by a week its hearings into an application by Coles nightfill worker Penny Vickers to terminate the 2011 agreement, after warning that granting further extensions could render her case moot if the retailer gets a new agreement approved.
The FWC has accepted that BHP Billiton's sacking of a worker who raised his safety visor to get a better look at an exploding smelter at a uranium mine was justified but harsh, stopping short of reinstatement, though, because of the company's "rational" loss of trust and confidence in him.
Employer's text didn't dismiss employee; Correct ABN speeds application amendment; Bench clears way for challenge to authority on fixed-term contracts.
Catholic school employers have failed to convince the FWC to refer to a full bench its challenge to the right of NSW and ACT teachers to take protected action on the basis their dioceses are not "single interest employers" as required by the Fair Work Act.
The FWC has reaffirmed its jurisdictional ambit to determine right-of-entry disputes after an employer questioned whether it was seeking to exercise judicial powers it does not possess.
An FWC member has observed that a business with more than 40 employees "is large enough to warrant a HR manager and a HR officer" in a case where an employer sought leave to challenge its own HR manager's recollection of events.
The FWC's minimum wage panel is seeking submissions by next Friday on whether to hold a preliminary hearing into new "budget standards" research that establishes the income required for a healthy lifestyle, updated for changes in household expenses since the development of the original benchmark in the mid-1990s.
