Woolworths has successfully appealed a Fair Work Australia ruling that enterprise agreements must include a clause providing for the arbitration of disputes over their operation.
Individual flexibility arrangements cannot be used to vary the terms of the agreements under which they are made, Fair Work Australia has found, in a ruling that could limit the flexibility available to employers and employees under the new IR laws.
The Federal Magistrates Court will in June hear a case brought by a female pilot formerly employed by a Qantas subsidiary who claims she was discriminated against when a male trainer subjected her to sexist comments.
FWA has today heard a company's bid to use the new federal scope order rules to enforce its decision to switch from national to local bargaining - and the union's attempt to resist it.
Productivity Commission employees have won a wage rise of up to 5.5% over 18 months under a new pay deal taking effect today, but unusually for a public sector agency the rise is entirely contingent on meeting performance standards.
A tribunal has awarded a police officer almost $12,000 in damages after finding the NSW Police Commissioner discriminated against him by refusing, because of his presumed asthma, to allow him to undergo a tear gas exposure test that was required to gain promotion to a special unit.
Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has backed the job done by Fair Work Australia on award modernisation and says Labor's IR laws have lifted a red-tape burden off the shoulders of employers. Meanwhile, former Fair Pay Commissioner Professor Ian Harper and former DEWR secretary Peter Shergold are among those taking part in the Coalition policy roundtable in Canberra on Friday.
FWA in the last three days has rejected on procedural grounds 13 non-union agreements made just before the modern awards system took effect, while it found another one failed the no disadvantage test.
Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has called for a pause in the "hysteria" over the new IR system, in the wake of today's data revealing that private sector trend pay rates excluding bonuses are increasing at the lowest rate in 12 years.
