A Senate inquiry has urged Public Service Minister Michaelia Cash to intervene in the federal public sector bargaining dispute and soften the "intransigent" Coalition's "brutally hard-line" bargaining policy by relaxing the 2% wages cap and removing the prohibition on backpay, but Government senators have flatly rejected the recommendations.
A Turnbull Coalition Government, if returned at the July 2 election, will amend the Fair Work Act to make franchisors and parent entities responsible for their franchisees' and subsidiaries' exploitation of vulnerable workers, while increasing penalties tenfold for employers that underpay such workers and fail to keep proper records.
Casuals and workers on "rolling contracts" would have the right to ask their employer to convert them to permanent employment after 12 months, under a new policy released by the Greens today.
Victorian Labor has committed to abolishing the state's construction industry code of practice, repealing the Napthine Government’s anti-picket laws and creating two new public holidays if elected on November 29.
In the first real IR test of the post-July 1 Senate's precarious balance of power, Palmer United Party senators voted with their Coalition colleagues last night to preserve, by one vote, the rights of the WA government and third parties to ask the Fair Work Commission to terminate damaging industrial action.
The Senate's Education and Employment Legislation Committee has recommended today that the upper house pass the government's Fair Work Amendment Bill unamended, with the ALP and the Greens tabling separate reports opposing the legislation.
Labor and the Greens have combined in the Senate today to defeat the Abbott Government's legislation to establish a Registered Organisations Commission and align penalties for union and employer association officials with corporations law.
Labor and Greens members that make up the majority of a Senate committee have adopted AiG's view that substantial elements of the Abbott Government's Registered Organisations Bill are too onerous and need to be relaxed.
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver will lead a union delegation to Canberra tomorrow to step up political lobbying over the Abbott government's legislation to change the Qantas Sale Act.
