A Victorian parliamentary inquiry has called for a legislated roll-back of cuts to penalty rates in the retail, hospitality and pharmacy industries, rather than a process of take-home pay orders issued by the Fair Work Commission.
The ACTU's triennial Congress has endorsed a proposal for state and federal governments to enact industrial manslaughter laws, after maritime union leader Chris Cain told delegates that employers who recklessly kill workers should face $20 million fines and 20 years behind bars.
Unions will next week consider pushing for stronger remedies for unfair dismissal by adopting measures such as removing the $73,000 compensation limit, enabling employees to pursue more than their lost income and empowering them to seek penalties against employers.
Protected action should be available to workers without the need for a secret ballot, according to the draft IR policy to be put to the ACTU's triennial Congress next week.
The Greens intend to use their leverage in the Senate to press a future Federal Labor Government to permit industry-wide bargaining, enshrine the right to strike and remove restrictions on agreement content.
United Voice secretary Jo Schofield has made it clear that the union won't accept "baby steps" in moving to a universal industry bargaining system if Labor wins the next election, saying a misplaced trust in enterprise bargaining has been damaging for its members.
Economist and former Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission presidential member Joe Isaac has called for a major overhaul of IR laws to restore the power of unions and boost the "authority" of the IR tribunal to drive wages growth.
The CPSU says it will recommend Bureau of Meteorology workers reject a new agreement offer that relegates delegates' access rights to a side deal and makes them subject to management approval, vowing in the meantime to keep inserting campaign messages into the bureau's forecasts.
Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews has pledged to create a new labour inspectorate to police wage underpayments, which will offer a competing state-based jurisdiction to the Commonwealth's Fair Work Ombudsman.
