"Industrial anarchy" could reign if parties refuse to honour industrial bargains, a Federal Court judge has found in requiring Queensland Rail and its subsidiaries to pay the maximum statutory fines for their "flagrant" breaches of major change consultation requirements in their agreements.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow has, as expected, been formally elected as general secretary of the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation and will leave the ACTU at the end of the month after a decade in the job.
In an important decision on modern awards, a FWA full bench has today ruled that overtime is not subject to phasing and clarified that employers are generally permitted to absorb modern award increases into employees' over-award payments.
Disruption looms for NSW's train system if the State's 15,000-odd rail workers in coming weeks vote up protected industrial action including strikes of up to 24 hours and bans on collecting fares in a bid to progress their negotiations for a new agreement.
The Federal Government's amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act - introduced into Parliament yesterday - establish breastfeeding as a separate ground of discrimination and extend the existing protections from discrimination on family responsibility grounds.
APESMA and Qantas have struck a deal ending the long-running bargaining dispute that saw the airline's professional engineers take industrial action for the first time.
Union leaders today said Julia Gillard's rise to the nation's top political job would improve Labor's chances at the next election, while employer groups urged her to take a balanced approach on issues such the mining tax and climate change.
Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has cited the Opposition's position on IR, health and education as her primary motivation for challenging Kevin Rudd for the leadership of the Labor Party this morning.
Deputy Prime Minister and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has been elected unopposed as leader of the ALP and is now set to become Australia's first female Prime Minister.
The parliamentary Labor Party will tomorrow morning vote on whether to replace Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with his deputy and Workplace Relations Minister, Julia Gillard.
