Union industrial officers are increasingly being supplanted by external IR lawyers, with the phenomenon most pronounced in "organising" unions, according to the principal of a boutique union-clientele law firm.
Union density has risen for the first time in 13 years and membership has increased by 160,000 in the past two years, while working from home appears to have stabilised at a bit more than a third of employees, new ABS data reveals.
More than 90% of federal public sector employees have not been trained in the use of artificial intelligence despite 41% knowing that it is already being used in their department or agency, a survey has found.
Unions will bargain for artificial intelligence "productivity clauses" to ensure workers are paid a "fair share" of additional wealth created by the technology rather than just generating "super profits" for employers, under a new ACTU policy.
Unions are seeking a "total ban" on using AI to hire, fire, discipline or promote workers, along with an "AI tax", in submissions to a Senate inquiry accusing employers of introducing the technology without consultation and deploying it to police productivity.
The TWU says it will "deploy significant and focussed resources" on a campaign to recruit more gig workers, as the FWC prepares to exercise its new powers to set minimum standards in that sector and in road transport.
The Mining and Energy Union's 18-member national governing body will have two positions reserved for women – up from one – after the FWC accepted "persuasive" evidence that it would make the union's leadership more representative.
The FWC's general manager is conducting a "major investigation" into a Health Services Union branch in Victoria, which is continuing after the former Registered Organisations Commission launched it about two years ago.
The NTEU has contributed to a doubling of Indigenous employment in tertiary education over the past two decades, by creating a "unique" union structure and using collective bargaining to establish employment targets and other Indigenous-specific provisions in enterprise agreements, an academic says.
The process of obtaining an entry permit should be "no more than onerous" than that for a passport unless there are "good grounds" for suspecting the applicant might not be a fit and proper person, according to the Booth-Hamberger review of regulation of registered organisations.
