The FWC has expressed "little hope" a Victorian bus operator, the TWU and an unregistered union will strike a deal within a two-week negotiating period before heading to a full bench for an intractable bargaining workplace determination, following a string of failed ballots and a "reversion" to earlier or entrenched positions.
Long haul Qantas pilots are about to vote on whether to back protected action for the first time since the airline grounded its fleet and locked out workers in 2011, as they seek improvements to a rejected offer and the Flying Kangaroo prepares to roll out its crucial Project Sunrise non-stop flights.
The FWC will tomorrow hear BHP's bid to break a bargaining deadlock at its crucial Port Hedland operations, ahead of unions staging an eight-hour strike on Thursday the miner claims could cost it more than $100 million. Update: This article has been updated to reflect the FWC bringing forward the conference to tomorrow.
If BHP workers striking in Port Hedland next week can secure a union agreement, it would challenge the IR model that has endured in the Pilbara for more than 30 years, an IR researcher says.
The FWC has confirmed an electrical contractor's pursuit of a multi-employer deal does not displace its obligation to negotiate a single enterprise agreement sought by the ETU, granting the union a PABO after finding the company breached good faith obligations.
Industrial action has ceased at hydrocarbons producer Inpex after it reached an in-principle agreement with the Offshore Alliance containing what the unions claim are "great" pay rises they claim will set the standard for negotiations underway for a new Shell Prelude agreement, while they have credited the FWC's interest-based bargaining efforts with hastening a resolution.
Unions have today sought authorisation to strike at BHP's iron ore export operations at Port Hedland, after claiming to have been "stonewalled" during bargaining for new deals.
Following one of the country's longest-running bargaining disputes and the AMWU's use of a majority support determination to force Cochlear back to the table, the FWC has approved a new deal covering the hearing implants giant for the first time in 20 years.
The NSW IRC has today accepted the NSWNMA's position that their public sector members' work is undervalued, awarding heavily frontloaded increases of up to 28% over three years.
BHP says it has contingency plans in place to ensure continuity of power supply to its Pilbara mines and ports, as 60 workers who operate its remote electricity grid threaten what it says is its WA iron ore operation's first protected action this century.
