The NSW IRC has increased the State's minimum wage by $15.50 to $568.20 a week, rejecting employer calls to follow the AFPC's wage freeze and saying it would be "inconceivable" for a body charged with protecting the low-paid not to award an increase.
The Federal Government will train 30,000 apprentices in "practical, job ready" green skills in 2010 and 2011, under a plan announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the ALP's biennial national conference today.
A former workshop manager at a small manufacturer engaged in "dishonest and fraudulent" conduct when he used confidential information obtained in the job to help set up a competing business, the WA Supreme Court has ruled.
The Federal Government will consult with unions and employer groups as well as the peak bodies for small business and the self-employed over the next three months to finalise details of its paid parental leave scheme, which is due to begin in January 2011.
The AMWU is trying to force Cochlear to the bargaining table by applying to Fair Work Australia for a majority support determination, in what looms as an important test of the Government's new IR laws.
In its first good faith bargaining order, Fair Work Australia has told an employer to halt a ballot for a proposed agreement and to have a series of meetings with the ASU.
Employer groups and the Coalition have criticised a demand by the CFMEU (construction and general division) WA branch for employers to sign a good faith bargaining manifesto they say goes beyond the requirements in the Fair Work Act.
The Rudd Government will require tenderers for Government contracts to establish that their employment arrangements comply with "Fair Work principles", under a raft of changes to policies underpinning $24 billion in federal purchasing that AWU leader Paul Howes described today as the most significant change in industry policy in more than 15 years.
The construction unions have urged the Senate committee inquiring into the Federal Government’s industry-specific IR bill to not let allegations of violence and criminal behaviour cloud the reality that the legislation – like the Howard Government’s before it - deals with breaches of industrial, not criminal, law.
$12 flat increase for Tasmanian award-based workers; Virgin's Godfrey takes softer line ahead of cabin crew ballot result; and Brunel does Fair Work greenfields deal with unions.
