ETU Victorian branch seeks green light for election inquiry; Court rejects bid to halt CFMEU WA election; Union-owned law firm model one year on; and VP Watson among conference speakers.
A FWA full bench has divided over whether an enterprise agreement can be approved if the required notice of employee representational rights fails to refer to unions as default bargaining agents.
FWA says "exceptional circumstances" warrant backdating of pay rises for non-junior integrated ratings working on offshore resource projects to reflect the 2012 national minimum wage decision, while the tribunal has made substantial changes to the modern award covering the cinema industry.
The Queensland Government has failed in a bid to argue that public sector powers available to departmental chief executives when dealing with public service employees suffering from a mental or physical incapacity effectively override the State's anti-discrimination legislation.
CFMEU members at Rio Tinto's Blair Athol coal mine in central Queensland are planning industrial action that could include shift-length strikes from "as early as possible" next week, in a bid to secure the same redundancy package as employees on individual arrangements ahead of the mine's closure.
A new enterprise agreement covering some 90 Victorian child care centres and more than 1700 child care educators offers "superior pay and conditions" to previous agreements, but employer concerns about the improved conditions ultimately meant that only one-third of Victoria's not-for-profit centres have signed onto the deal.
The Federal Court has reinstated a BHP Coal machinery operator who was dismissed after holding up an anti-"scab" sign at protests at the Saraji coal mine in Queensland's Bowen Basin during this year's hard-fought enterprise bargaining round.
A senior international courier service employee who was previously found guilty of contempt over pressure he applied to settle his unfair dismissal claim has won tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid overtime, under the now rarely used NSW unfair contracts jurisdiction.
