The administrators of Clive Palmer's Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd have recommended the company be put into liquidation next week, opening the way for hundreds of sacked workers to be paid under the Federal Government's Fair Entitlements Guarantee.
An appeal court has reduced the $3m severance and bonus payout awarded to an investment bank chief executive dislodged after a global takeover, while it has granted the bank's head of global markets an exit payment of almost $400,000.
Almost 2500 Dick Smith Electronics employees will lose their jobs, after the company's receivers announced this afternoon that they will close 301 stores in Australia after failing to find a buyer.
Doubts remain over $31 million in entitlements owed to 800 current and former Queenland Nickel employees unless the company's administrators can secure fresh investment in coming months.
The AWU is calling for the corporate regulator to investigate whether Queensland Nickel breached corporations laws and whether owner Clive Palmer is acting as a "shadow director", as part of the union's push to secure members' outstanding entitlements.
Two employees have failed to win back more than 2,000 hours in sick leave credits they lost when their employment moved from a publicly owned corporation to a private entity after the NSWIRC found there was no transfer of employment.
The Fair Work Commission has dismissed a multinational contracting company's attempt to bypass its severance obligations in an important decision on the definition of the "ordinary and customary turnover of labour" in the contracting and labour hire industries.
A Roy Morgan Research subsidiary plans to take to the High Court its claim that payments to contractors should be taken to include all award entitlements, after a failed full court appeal that director Gary Morgan says has "massive implications" for other companies.
The AMWU has responded to the continued loss of Australian manufacturing jobs and falling union membership by making 11 officials redundant in Victoria and NSW over recent months.
