The majority privately-owned operator of NSW's high-voltage electricity network and unions have until next Monday to agree on terms for a new agreement before handing matters over to a FWC full bench to resolve any outstanding issues via an intractable bargaining determination.
A FWC senior member has warned Virgin Australia pilots that if they reject a recommended offer, including what the TWU says is a "historic" pay boost of up to 21% over three years and a sign-on bonus, it will create "further uncertainty and prevent substantive pay increases" for all.
Wharfies at Qube's bulk and general ports plan to step up protected industrial action with bans and limitations this week in Melbourne, Port Kembla and Brisbane, while warning that strikes are imminent.
The FWC has late today declined to expedite Transgrid's application for an intractable bargaining application against the ETU, after the power company last week won a two-month suspension of the union's protected action, but lost its bid to block an order for production of documents.
Mining unions emboldened by Labor's reformed IR laws have called on Rio Tinto to come to the negotiating table ahead of bargaining at BHP's Pilbara iron ore operations that might achieve the first union agreement for production workers in a decade.
Stevedore Qube has failed to persuade the FWC that the MUA is deliberately complicating negotiations for a new Melbourne port deal in the belief that it will get a better result if the matter is arbitrated by the Commission under new Closing Loopholes laws.
Unions have called for a consumer boycott of cheeses made by Canadian-owned food giant Saputo, as they push for pay parity between a group of Tasmanian maintenance workers and their mainland counterparts.
Ramsay Health Care has used competition laws to win orders restraining a ANMF advertising campaign, after the Federal Court accepted it had an arguable case that the union made false and misleading clams that might damage the company's reputation and scare off patients.
The SDA has failed to win bargaining orders against a beauty retailer that froze it out of negotiations for a new deal, after a FWC member had just an hour to weigh the application before voting ended and it won resounding support.
An individual bargaining agent has failed to persuade the FWC that it should not permit Australia's largest private sector company and second-biggest union – both with substantial legal and IR capacity – from engaging external lawyers to defend a bargaining order bid, as negotiations continue to replace its supermarkets deal.
