ACTU secretary-elect Dave Oliver will ask Congress in Sydney this week to approve his plan to set up a permanent campaigning function within the peak body, telling 1000 union representatives from around the country that it’s not up to the Labor Government to solve their problems and they have to win their case for change in the community first.
ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence in his final speech as leader ahead of his retirement, told the organisation's triennial Congress in Sydney today that in the face of a "real danger" of an Abbott Coalition Government, unions needed to be unified to defeat attacks against workers and make Australian society fairer.
A former Flight Centre assistant store manager has today lodged an adverse action claim that alleges he was victimised by his manager after complaining about bullying of a colleague by a store manager and that the company, including its HR manager, failed to take action to halt the conduct.
FWA would have new powers to make "secure work orders" and labour hire providers would be licensed, under proposals in the report of the ACTU-commissioned Howe inquiry into insecure work.
The SDA has today lost its Federal Court appeal against Fair Work Australia's variation of the modern retail award to allow school students to work shifts of less than three hours.
The Federal Court has this morning raised three potential problems with the bids by both the Federal Government and the six non-HSU East branches of the warring union to have HSU East placed into administration.
NSW Greens IR spokesperson David Shoebridge hopes an administrator for the troubled state-registered HSU East branch could be appointed as soon as today after the passage of legislation through the NSW Parliament.
Unions will seek to introduce new good faith bargaining requirements; expand the range of matters than can be bargained over; abolish the Minister's power to terminate protected action; end Qantas-style bargaining tactics; increase the national weekly minimum wage to $660 by 2015; extend employees' rights to request flexible work arrangements; and increase personal carer's leave by five days, under policy proposals before ACTU Congress next week.
A Federal Court full court, ruling on the long-haul pilots union's challenge to last year's Qantas lockout, has confirmed there is a "low threshold" for employer response action, with no need for it to be "reasonable, proportionate or rational".
