The Federal Court has fined a Victorian company $60,000 and ordered it to pay a former employee more than $6,000 after it transferred then suspended her when she took her underpayment complaint to the OWS and to court.
University funding will no longer be tied to universities offering AWAs to their employees, under legislation introduced to Parliament by Education Minister Julia Gillard this afternoon.
The Rudd Labor Government will ban AWAs in the federal public service, allow parties to pre-Work Choices agreements to extend them for up to three years, extend the life of NAPSAs, ban the unilateral termination of collective agreements, retain the Work Choices exceptional circumstances test for deals that fail the new no disadvantage test, and allow ITEAs to be offered on a take it or leave it basis, in its IR transitional bill introduced into parliament today by Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard.
On the eve of Labor introducing the first tranche of its IR reforms, new academic research says that its Forward with Fairness policy is a mixed bag for women in minimum wage sectors of the economy and fails to address the "fundamental disadvantages" they suffer.
The Reserve Bank has today warned that a wage/price spiral could result if inflation isn't tamed, while the Fair Pay Commission has begun the consultation process for its 2008 minimum wage review.
A Victorian local government authority has won exemptions from the state's anti-discrimination laws to introduce a phased retirement scheme for employees aged over 55.
The sacking of a petrol station attendant for buying himself a packet of cigarettes at a promotional discount price that saved him $2.40 – in breach of staff policy - was not harsh or disproportionate, the AIRC has ruled.
A Woolworths manager with over 20 years' service who was sacked last year for drinking two full-strength beers at lunchtime has lost his appeal against the decision.
A full bench of the AIRC has upheld a company's appeal against an earlier finding that it didn't adequately establish that a dismissal was for operational reasons and therefore exempt under Work Choices' termination of employment laws - which will remain in force until the ALP's substantive IR changes take effect.
Qantas and the ALAEA have agreed in principle to a four-year agreement for 3% annual pay rises and guarantees of aircraft maintenance services in Australia.
