A Turnbull Government review is calling for legislative change to overhaul "ineffective" recruitment practices and boost gender equality in the Australian Public Service, but the CPSU has criticised it for missing an opportunity to drive positive change.
Changes to greenfields agreements bargaining, protected action ballots and unpaid parental leave have come into effect today, after the Federal Government's Fair Work Amendment Bill received Royal Assent yesterday.
Coalition members of a Senate committee have backed the passage of the Government's Bill that seeks to halt parents "double-dipping" into government and employer-funded paid parental leave schemes, but Labor and Greens senators say the change is regressive.
The ACTU has fired its first salvo at new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, calling on him to stop the Coalition's "attacks" on conditions such as penalty rates and paid parental leave.
The in-principle agreement covering workers employed by the head contractor for the massive Gorgon LNG project includes paid "bed busts", when their work stint is reduced due to a shortage of accommodation.
Employers are likely to maintain their own paid parental leave schemes even if the Abbott Government's proposed Bill to prevent so-called parent "double-dipping" into government and employer-funded schemes becomes law, according to a key employer group.
Westpac and the FSU have reached an in-principle agreement on a new agreement covering about 30,000 employees across Westpac and its subsidiary banks that will for the first time remove the link between performance targets and fixed pay increases for all staff earning less than $75,000 per annum.
A company's parental leave policy – which breached the NES by making unpaid parental leave only available to "primary" caregivers - has cost it $170,000 in the unpaid wages and redundancy pay that an employee would have received if he had been allowed to access the leave and its flow-on benefits.
Australia's largest rail freight operator, Aurizon, has been ordered to provide the full pro-rata rate of pay to a train driver who was to receive a reduced amount under a compassionate grounds/short-term medical disability clause when she returned part-time from maternity leave.
