An employer's refusal to give in to the demands of a bargaining representative does not amount to a failure to negotiate in good faith, the FWC has confirmed in rejecting a bid for bargaining orders.
Early adopters Sydney Water and the ASU are again making use of the FWC's New Approaches program in negotiations for a new three-year agreement, providing workers with detailed proposals for conditions and pay rises after four days early this month of "interest-based" assisted talks.
The FWC has rejected a bid for bargaining orders to stop an agreement going to ballot, finding the employer was entitled to "draw a line in the sand" and refuse further negotiations.
The SA branch of the IEU and employers have conceded defeat after almost two years of bitter negotiations for a new deal covering the state's Catholic schools, with both withdrawing their claims and settling on backdated pay rises aligned with those in government schools.
The AMWU has applied for bargaining orders against Griffin Coal after workers were told they would fall back onto the award following their refusal to accept a new agreement from management.
AMMA has asked an FWC presidential member to correct the public record, claiming he was wrong in upbraiding the employer body for its "apparent failure" to inform the Commission about changes to its client's ownership during a good faith bargaining case.
Mining giant Thiess has had a proposed enterprise agreement knocked back because it was not genuinely agreed, with the FWC finding the company chose the three employees who participated in the ballot to "manipulate" the result.
An FWC full bench has held that an employer is entitled to make workers redundant as part of a restructure to manage loss or damage caused by protected industrial action.
WA's Murdoch University has applied to terminate its enterprise agreement, which the NTEU claims could cut academics' pay by 25% to 40% once they fall back onto underlying awards.
The FWC has rejected a union application for a bargaining order, after finding that redundancies triggered by protected industrial action do not necessarily constitute a breach of good faith bargaining obligations.
