Advertising on Facebook and other social media is enough for employers seeking to sponsor temporary overseas visa workers to show they have looked locally first, according to the Department of Immigration.
The FWC is expecting a "significant number" of bullying applications and inquiries next year and has released a model for dealing with them and a draft benchbook, as well as announcing Commissioner Peter Hampton's appointment as the head of its anti-bullying panel.
In a decision with implications for the interpretation of the NES personal leave standard, a senior member of the Fair Work Commission has ruled that the Groote Eylandt Mining Company should have allowed a FIFO worker to take carer's leave when child-minding arrangements for her 14-year-old son during school holidays fell through four days before she was to fly out from Cairns.
About 1500 workers employed by Fluor Australia and six other companies across Queensland's Surat Basin have returned to work yesterday after taking industrial action in protest at the companies' refusal to negotiate over "motelling" and other camp conditions.
Queensland's parliamentary ethics committee has recommended the expulsion of Scott Driscoll, the MP for Redcliffe and former head of a state-registered retail employers association, for committing contempt when he failed to disclose his continuing role in the organisation and more than half a million dollars of private income that was partly funded by the retail body.
The Federal Court might have opened the door to a broader reach for the Independent Contractors Act, in refusing yesterday to throw out a dentist's application to review the fairness of a contract that he says obliges him to provide services to a company that owns the premises and dental practice where he treats patients.
More than 11,000 Northern Territory public sector workers will gain access to a 12% wage increase over the next four years if the Fair Work Commission certifies the proposed Northern Territory Public Sector 2013 – 2017 Enterprise Agreement, which only about 25% of the workforce ultimately supported.
In a ruling that suggests there might be a role for arbitration of flexible hours' requests under enterprise agreements, the FWC has rejected an IT administrator's bid to move to a four-day working week to care for his disabled mother and mother-in-law, finding that the cost to his employer would outweigh the benefits to him.
An in-principle agreement between Holden and the AMWU will be put to the company's Fishermans Bend engine plant employees at meetings from 6am tomorrow, with vehicle union secretary Dave Smith confident it will end the dispute over redundancy packages.
Holden and the vehicle unions were back in the Fair Work Commission this afternoon, with the company seeking return-to-work orders against Melbourne workers who remain on strike over its involuntary redundancy package.
