A major plastics manufacturer has this morning applied for the FWC to halt protected action at a plant in Melbourne, where the AWU says the only current action is the employer's lockout of its members.
Influential CFMMEU leader John Setka has flagged taking a "reasonable" approach to the next major bargaining round after the expected abolition of the ABCC, expressing hope that any significant industrial action can be avoided as members seek to keep pace with inflation.
Sydney Trains' request for extra notice of RTBU plans to turn off Opal readers and gates so it could safely do so itself has been rejected by the FWC, a senior member observing that on the employer's own evidence it would only make any potential disruption worse.
A prominent IR academic has told today's jobs summit that the optimism that attended the Fair Work Act's introduction in 2009 was "misplaced", with workers in the years since unable to effectively exercise power when bargaining.
Unions are accusing Apple of trying to ram through a deal that could have employees working up to 60 hours a week without overtime, with the ASU and the SDA calling for more time to consult and RAFFWU seeking 5% a year and to claw back alleged underpayments.
Shell Australia has after failing in its bid to suspend protected action on its Prelude floating LNG platform decided to delay major maintenance work on the northern WA facility for almost a year.
In what unions have decried as a "hyper-aggressive" industrial relations tactic, Shell Australia has begun shutting down its massive Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility after receiving notice of new work bans covering the berthing and loading of tankers.
The NSW Opposition has promised today that if it takes power at the March election, it will scrap the decade-old public sector wages cap and replace it with a productivity-based bargaining system.
