Australia's recent free trade agreements with China and South Korea could "cut across" international labour standards, according to the ACTU, which wants the Productivity Commission to recommend their review.
Restrictions on employers' use of contractors would be illegal and subject to penalties of up to $10 million, which would also be the maximum fine for secondary boycott breaches, under recommended changes to competition laws.
A dismissed employee has failed to convince the Fair Work Commission that an accidentally-sent text in which she called her employer a "complete d-ck" was a "lighthearted insult".
A judge has raised questions about the FWBC's exercise of discretion in its failed pursuit of a "very small" business for sham contracting, but has accepted that the watchdog didn't initiate the case without reasonable cause.
The Federal Court has ordered the MUA and a labour supplier to pay $800,000 in compensation and penalties for taking unlawful adverse action when they combined to deny employment to a "salt of the earth" non-union couple.
Long-serving ASU NSW and ACT services branch secretary Sally McManus has formally left the union to take up a senior full-time position with the ACTU, and has also put her hand up for one of the peak body's vice president positions.
The federal government wants the FWC's minimum wage panel to pay greater heed this year to impacts on the viability of small businesses and the axing of the carbon tax, but has declined to recommend a specific increase, while Labor has made its first-ever submission from Opposition.
An illiterate Indian cook who spoke no English has won $200,000 in compensation from a Sydney restaurant that brought him to Australia and employed him in conditions a judge said were "akin to slavery" and raised questions about the integrity of the 457 visa program.
Qantas wants companies to able to dock employee wages to recoup costs incurred in planning for protected industrial action that doesn't ultimately happen.
