The ALP should hand power to individual members of affiliated unions to vote on its leadership and candidates rather than leaving it in the hands of secretaries, says national president Mark Butler.
The Turnbull Government has listed two contested IR Bills for the debate in the Senate next week, setting it at odds with union calls to hold back controversial legislation until the citizenship status of MPs is clarified.
A Federal Labor Government would require that workers who vote on a new enterprise agreement be representative of those who will eventually be covered by it.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is calling for businesses, unions and employers to do "something radical, something profoundly different" by resuming 1980s-style cooperation to end wage stagnation and boost the economy.
The ACTU's new economic manifesto reveals the movement as the latest convert to the anti-globalisation sentiment sweeping the world, with strengthened calls for a focus on 'buy Australian' policies.
Citizens of nine of the Pacific's most vulnerable island nations and Timor-Leste will soon be able to work in the aged care sector in regional Australia following a Federal Government decision to establish a new Pacific Labour Scheme alongside the existing Seasonal Worker Programme.
The Minerals Council has entered the IR debate with a call to outlaw industrial action over labour hire and contracting-out, sideline unions and make it more difficult to enter workplaces and establish unlawful adverse action.
Australia must "redress the imbalance in bargaining power" held by workers and unions to reduce economic inequality, according to Federal Opposition workplace spokesperson, Brendan O'Connor.
Unions are seeking the reinstatement of powers to inspect non-members' time and wages records, after their analysis of 200 job advertisements aimed at Chinese, Korean and Spanish-speakers showed that almost four out of every five pay less than the award.
