The MEU is funding a class action against BHP for requiring on-hire production and maintenance crew to work public holidays, allegedly without making a reasonable request or telling them they could reasonably refuse, while the mining giant is challenging the legal principle at the heart of the case.
The NSW Industrial Court has found that a worker who started out as a "volunteer trainee" had been an employee and should have been paid, because he worked regularly and "meaningfully contributed" to the business.
A Federal Court majority has quashed a finding that the Black Coal Award requires BHP's Operations Services in-house labour hire arm to give its workforce two common public holidays off each year, and to cap shifts at 10 hours unless most employees agree to additional hours at overtime rates.
The National Employment Standards' weekly hours limit is incompatible with FIFO and 24/7 operations because of their reliance on averaged and extended shifts, and the "reasonableness" test is too burdensome, AREEA says in its submission to the NES inquiry.
The FWC has upbraided an early learning facility for seeking to override a part-time employee's right to predictable hours that the employer found "commercially or operationally inconvenient".
The author of a book tracing 150 years of campaigning for a shorter Australian working week says it offers crucial lessons for current efforts to win a four-day work week, cut unpaid overtime, and properly account for domestic labour, while AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy considers it part of a "just transition".
The implications of the Federal Court's retail underpayments decision are only starting to be understood, with employment law academic Andrew Stewart warning of the significent consequences of its redefinition of employer record-keeping obligations and findings on proving workers' agreement to vary award conditions.
In its first use of the new power to unilaterally amend the terms of substandard proposed agreements, the FWC has signalled it will rewrite provisions in three Aldi enterprise deals that leave storepersons worse off, to enable their approval.
Workers at Woodside's Pluto 2 LNG expansion in the Pilbara have overwhelmingly voted down head contractor Bechtel's proposed agreement, while Rio Tinto's Paraburdoo iron ore workers are set to receive a pay rise, announced shortly after unions kicked-off their majority support campaign.
With the FWC seeking feedback by early next month on whether to hold off on reviewing its insertion of right to disconnect terms into awards, a leading employment and IR barrister and former critic of the legislation says the lack of test cases is "remarkable".
