The Albanese Government is not attracted to "scorched earth" IR policies to address Australia's productivity challenges, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said today, ahead of tomorrow's tabling of the final report of the Productivity Commission's productivity inquiry.
The one in every six workers who took up the Morrison Government's invitation to withdraw their super during the pandemic mostly took the maximum $20,000 or their whole account balance, tended to spend the windfall on gambling and consumer items, and cut their retirement income by $120,000 in today's dollars, according to a new academic study.
Victoria's nation-first pilot scheme providing paid sick leave to casual and contract workers in selected industries has paid out more than one million hours of leave at a cost of more than $22 million in the past year, but unenthusiastic employers ensure its future remains cloudy despite evidence it reduced workplace illnesses.
An employer alleging a "rogue" HR contractor's misconduct robbed it of a chance to defend a supervisor's unfair dismissal claim has failed to convince the FWC to revoke a decision that left it with a $34,000 compensation bill.
"Similarities" with the case of a worker awarded compensation after being shown the door for missing a COVID-19 vaccination deadline have not been enough to persuade the FWC that a public utility unfairly dismissed an employee when it denied him a chance to wait for a Novavax jab.
As Telstra next week prepares to defend a Federal Court class action on behalf of employees who refused to comply with its COVID-19 vaccination policy, the FWC has held that it met consultation requirements and "bent over backwards" to ensure fairness before sacking a worker with a moral objection to being jabbed.
A big employer's failure to give union representatives a "heads up" that it would impose a vaccination mandate did not necessarily render its subsequent dismissal of 25 workers unfair, the FWC has found.
The FWC has found that a Boeing subsidiary unfairly dismissed an unvaccinated worker because it should first have completed its consideration of whether it could redeploy him.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in record numbers of people working from home, but the latest Hilda Survey suggests the period might not serve as a reliable indicator of productivity and job satisfaction levels for those who are not forced into it.
A FWC commissioner has recused himself from hearing a vax-hesitant university worker's dispute after accepting that views he expressed during unsuccessful conciliation raised doubts about his impartiality.
