ASX top 100 company Asciano, which estimates that its subsidiary Patrick's last bruising bargaining round cost it $21 million, is calling for a greater role for the Fair Work Commission in "agreement facilitation".
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has flagged that next month's Federal Budget will include changes to make it cheaper for contractors and small traders to employ workers.
The NSW secretary of the firefighters' union, Jim Casey, has survived a challenge by just 11 votes after only 31% of eligible members voted in an election that was declared yesterday.
The Senate committee inquiring into the federal government's bargaining bill has handed down a report free of any recommendations to improve it, with Coalition senators wanting it passed without amendment and Labor and the Greens calling for its rejection.
Teachers and support staff in more than 500 Catholic schools across NSW and the ACT are expected to stop work for a full day on April 28, with their union and employer at loggerheads after bargaining for a replacement agreement since the last deal expired in 2013.
A dismissed software engineer must pay IBM Australia $150,000 in costs after failing to convince the Federal Circuit Court that she was discriminated against because she was a young single mother.
The Abbott Government has appointed to the High Court the Federal Court judge Michelle Gordon, who last month was part of a full bench that struck down the Coalition's attempt to exclude foreign workers on offshore resources projects from Australian labour standards.
The FWC has issued a new, unconditional entry permit to the CFMEU construction and general division's Queensland leader, rejecting the building watchdog's argument that it should be withheld because of union conduct that has attracted more than $900,000 in fines during his eight years as "ringmaster".
