Tasmania's Hodgman Government has introduced draft legislation for its proposal to impose a 12-month freeze on the wages and incremental increases of the state's 24,000 public servants and remove the State IRC's power to award future pay increases above a 2% Government-set cap.
A new report from a major employment law firm predicts that the Senate will pass the Abbott Government's Fair Work Act and building industry amendments, suggests the next reforms will be limits on industrial action and productivity requirements for enterprise agreements, and highlights the lower than expected activity in the FWC's anti-bullying jurisdiction.
The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which has had an uncertain future since the Coalition won office last year, has announced an inquiry into the cash-in-transit industry.
The FSU will push to flow on changes in performance pay agreed with the National Australia Bank into upcoming bargaining grounds at the other three big banks.
A positive economic outlook and sustained labour productivity improvement are key factors in yesterday's Fair Work Commission's decision to award a 3% increase to award rates of pay, with the minimum wage panel again advising employer groups that they need to introduce more rigour to their surveys if they are to have any influence on the tribunal's deliberations.
The ACTU has asked that a member of the minimum wage review panel stand aside on the grounds of "apprehended bias" after he sat on the Abbott Government's Commission of Audit, which recommended a radical reduction in the pay safety net. Meanwhile, retail super funds have begun legal action against the FWC.
The NSW Government has had a victory in its long-running battle to include compulsory superannuation increases within the public sector 2.5% wage cap, after the State's Court of Appeal quashed last year's IRC ruling that the wages cap only applied to Commission-awarded increases.
New analysis by the ACTU argues that the real agenda of the Commission of Audit's suggested changes to the national minimum wage is to reduce the pay safety net for 1.5 million workers who receive award minimum rates.
ACCI says the new safety net established by modern awards in 2010 cured any gender-based pay inequities, in a submission to the Fair Work Commission full bench that is hearing a bid by three unions to win equal remuneration for child care workers.
