The Morrison Government established an IR working group, chaired by former ACTU secretary Greg Combet and including a key legal advisor to the MUA during the bitter 1998 waterfront dispute, as a trouble-shooting body at the height of the COVID-19 restrictions and business shutdowns in April.
IR Minister and working groups chair Christian Porter has appointed the former head of the WA Treasury as his deputy chair, in the wake of a preliminary roundtable in Sydney this morning.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison's plan for a dialogue with unions and employers over changes to workplace laws has sparked a scramble among stakeholders to get a seat at the table.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison's headland speech on a new approach to IR change extended an olive branch to unions by dropping the "ensuring integrity' legislation, but also raised the prospect of further measures to crack down on unlawful behaviour on construction sites.
The ACTU will head into the Morrison Government's JobMaker policy discussions with the aim of reducing insecure employment and extending paid pandemic leave.
Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter will chair five working groups with the aim of producing a "practical reform" of the IR system to help grow jobs as the economy emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
NCCC releases COVIDsafe "planning tool"; $70 million in underpayments by Suncorp; Minimum pay rise needed to boost virus-hit economy, says Labor; and Fast food award hearing.
The FWC has asked the Federal Government for extra resources to deal with a coronavirus-driven "surge" in unfair dismissal claims, according to the tribunal's president, who also expects the pandemic will bring about a permanent change in the organisation's operations, with many members and staff to continue working from home.
A leading labour market economist has rebutted resource employers' demands for greater labour flexibility, saying the adaptability of the current system is underlined by the way it responded to the mining boom and the subsequent crash.
Employers will soon have access to a "complete toolkit" to achieve "COVIDsafe" workplaces when their businesses "reanimate" after the coronavirus hibernation, the Federal Government promised this afternoon, while the chief medical officer addressed the question of whether the coronavirus means the end of hotdesking.
