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.
In a breakthrough for the ACTU ahead of this week's Jobs and Skills Summit, the Council of Small Business has agreed to support multi-employer agreements, while the two will also work together to achieve "new options" for workplace flexibility.
The IEU is accusing the NSW Association of Independent Schools of using COVID-19 as an excuse to breach good faith bargaining requirements and abandon centralised negotiations on behalf of 220 schools, but the peak body says they are still "on foot".
The CEPU has launched a full-frontal attack on electrical contractors' efforts to secure a multi-enterprise agreement, claiming employers in other industries might use their actions as a "blueprint" to use the Fair Work Act to their advantage before the federal election.
A Federal Labor government will consider allowing multi-employer bargaining, but will focus on low-paid workers such as cleaners and early childhood educators, according to shadow IR minister Brendan O'Connor.
The Fair Work Commission is missing its internal deadlines for approving enterprise agreements as it copes with an increasing number of complex deals that might need undertakings.
The CFMEU will stage a national day of protest next week as tensions rise in the construction industry over the coming deadline for having code-compliant agreements to avoid being barred from winning Commonwealth-funded contracts.
After clashing over workload protections for teachers and support workers in more than 500 NSW and ACT Catholic schools, the Independent Education Union is seeking to take industrial action and negotiate agreements directly with 11 dioceses rather than make the multi-enterprise agreement sought by the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations.
The Fair Work Commission has resumed hearing another round of deadlocked pay talks involving Victorian firefighters, threatening more political problems for the Andrews Labor government.
The Turnbull Government granted FWBC director Nigel Hadgkiss new powers soon before calling the federal election, in a bid to stop builders and contractors agreeing to "union-friendly" clauses in enterprise agreements.
