With legal avenues exhausted in their battles with the NSW government over public sector wages, superannuation and redundancy, unions have today lodged a complaint with the ILO and requested a formal investigation into the state's bargaining laws.
A five-member bench of the Federal Court has ruled that a company was entitled to summarily dismiss an executive employee for serious misconduct that destroyed the relationship of trust between them, even though it had moved earlier to terminate his employment on six months' notice.
The CFMEU has lauded thousands of construction workers who today defied warnings they could face hefty individual fines and attended national union rallies protesting against the Abbott Government's IR and other policies, while the ACTU has revealed more details about its marginal seats campaign.
In his second major backdown on Australian Defence Force personnel pay and conditions, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has bumped up from 1.5% to an above-inflation 2% the annual wage increases payable under their three-year agreement.
A group of leading IR academics has made a preemptive strike against any attempt to use the Coalition's "freedoms" inquiry to diminish the immunity from common law liability conferred by the Fair Work Act's protected industrial action provisions.
A court has ordered former directors of related liquidated companies to compensate a construction worker for underpayments owing under a modern award and its state predecessor, finding that the Fair Work Act's remedy provisions extend beyond employers.
The AWU says it has seen off an attempt by OneSteel to cut back existing conditions in steel-making by seeking to be covered by the national construction code, while ACTU leader Dave Oliver told the key affiliate's national conference today that the peak body will hire 20 marginal seat campaigners to highlight IR issues in the lead-up to the next election.
A Fair Work Commission full bench has today ordered a mining goliath to provide a union with a "genuine proposal" for a new enterprise agreement, after finding it failed to comply with the Fair Work Act's good faith bargaining requirements.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has asked a Victorian Government agency to urgently review the way it engages workers, after an investigation revealed it might be "misclassifying" employees as independent contractors.
