Taking only "embryonic" steps towards reaching an agreement; relying on employer inaction rather than its own initiative; and naming the wrong employer after a restructure were all reasons for FWA's rejection of protected action ballot applications by the CFMEU in Queensland.
A Qantas flight attendant's bad language and agitated behaviour provided grounds for her dismissal, but it might have been different if the conduct had occurred on a building site, FWA has found.
The ACTU has called on the panel reviewing the Fair Work Act to discard submissions from peak employer bodies, on the basis that they have failed to address the terms of reference and are seeking to reinstate features of Work Choices. Meanwhile, BHP Billiton has urged the panel to throw out union proposals to specifically allow entry to lunchrooms and to recognise the legitimacy of pattern bargaining.
New implementation guidelines for the national construction code remove detailed prescriptions against project agreements while specifically permitting unregistered agreements that provide for reduction of carbon pollution and running of anti-bullying and suicide prevention programs.
An HR outsourcing company has successfully enforced a two-year restraint provision - with all but three months of that on full pay - against one of its founders, whose ability to attract clients was likened to "sprinkling fairy dust".
MUA workers who stopped a vessel on the North West shelf Gorgon project from sailing because of concerns about the status of some crew members' immigration visas might have considered there were good social or community reasons for doing so, but it was still unprotected industrial action, Fair Work Australia has held.
Almost 700 Reserve Bank employees have won annual average pay rises of 3.83% a year with the potential for more from a 2% annual bonus pool and a "career increment" pool that has been set at about 1% for the first year, under a new agreement with the FSU.
The Victorian Supreme Court has ruled that a senior employee is not required to re-pay a 12-week redundancy payout that her former employer wanted back after discovering it had no legal obligation to make it.
The Federal Court has fined a company and its managing director $30,000 for signing seven employees up to individual flexibility agreements with unlawful terms and threatening with dismissal or loss of shifts employees who resisted. Meanwhile, the ACTU has predicted that a FWA research study will reveal widespread abuse of the individual deals.
