Qantas has secured new deals with freight pilots and unlicenced aircraft engineers but the threat of turmoil looms, with licensed engineers voting to stop work, ground crew considering it and the FAAA claiming domestic fight attendants are facing ultimatums.
A multinational company's lament about competing against "market disrupters" who treat workers as independent contractors has failed to distract the FWC from finding its proposed agreement failed the BOOT.
The Albanese Government has told the FWC it backs a minimum pay rise for the 365,000 aged care workers because their work value "is significantly higher than modern awards currently reflect" and "gender-based assumptions" have undervalued their labour.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says that inflation is likely to peak at 7.75% in the December quarter then decline over the next two years, while real wage rises will return next financial year, but the ACTU says the forecast only "deepens" the pay crisis, with the resumption of growth in mid-2024 meaning workers will have suffered four years of going backwards.
The Queensland Government appears to be continuing the rollout of its revised public sector wages policy, reaching an in-principle deal with the State's teachers that will deliver 11% in pay rises over three years, plus "cost of living top-up payments" of up to 3% a year.
A proposed new agreement for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition provides substantial upfront pay rises and entitlements to five days paid climate disaster leave, 30 days paid gender affirmation leave and 12% super contributions, while it replaces workplace breastfeeding provisions with "chestfeeding" rights.
The NSW Opposition has promised today that if it takes power at the March election, it will scrap the decade-old public sector wages cap and replace it with a productivity-based bargaining system.
In the wake of the RBA governor's warning about the risks of a wage-price spiral, new A-G's department data shows that bargained pay rises are flatlining at 2.7% a year in the private sector, rising at little more than half the 5.1% rate of headline consumer price inflation.
The legislative changes five years ago to permit the FWC to overlook minor flaws in bargaining notices have failed to save an agreement for an indigenous health organisation.
The FSU is seeking annual pay rises of 6% in bargaining at both Westpac and NAB, arguing the hefty increases are justified by the inflation spike and the major banks' continuing strong profits.
