Union accountability bill next week; Victorian Government ordered to produce documents; Legal advice sought on Victoria Police drug testing; Government to tackle Melbourne and Brisbane waterfront crime; and Productivity slump explained.
Falling productivity in the resources sector is unacceptable and has to change, federal resources and energy minister Martin Ferguson told AMMA's annual conference in Perth today.
Two former senior employees of a prominent Adelaide financial planning and stockbroking firm who set up their own company after being dismissed - taking many of their former clients with them - are now subject to a 12-month court-ordered restraint under a settlement reached this week.
The MUA has called on the Federal Government to take further action in response to a court ruling that two ships engaged in laying gasfield pipelines off the Western Australian coast are not within the Australian migration zone, and their overseas employees are therefore not required to have Australian working visas.
An IR specialist with the giant Inpex gas project has warned that unions will be making "some really big claims", particularly in offshore dredging and construction, as the expiry dates loom for the resource sector agreements made just before the start of the Fair Work regime.
Government asks FWA for broad apprentice review; Chef's adverse action claim fails; Qld unions criticise bill; and No comment from FWA on Thomson address.
Union's Qantas entry notice too broad, says FWA; Federal Court to hear all HSU East administration bids; CPSU reassures members on credit cards, travel; ABCC wins penalties against construction company for sham contracting; UnionsWA seeks 7% increase to minimum wage; and Who's who at the AMWU?
Fair Work Australia has launched pecuniary penalty proceedings in the Federal Court against the Health Services Union and three of its former Victoria No.1 branch officials.
The President of the NSW IRC, Justice Roger Boland, says there is "merit" in calls to increase access to compulsory arbitration in the wake of the protracted Qantas, Victorian nurses, Cochlear and Boeing disputes, and that it is "quite anathema to the Australian character and the ethos of a fair go to sit idly by whilst industrial parties slug it out to a standstill for no gain on either side".
Fair Work Australia Vice President Graeme Watson has called for a stronger focus on promotion of best practice in the workplace, but says a new institution might be needed to deliver it, as FWA and the FWO don't have the skills and parts of FWA are too dominated by people with union backgrounds who are more likely to frighten than enlighten workplaces with low or no union presence.
