Hard bargaining by unions or employers, including refusing to budge on important issues, is consistent with genuinely trying to reach agreement, Fair Work Australia has found, while in two separate decisions it has made contradictory rulings on identical ballot questions.
The Rudd Government has secured the passage of its bill to establish a new national OHS and workers compensation body - ahead of an OHS meeting tomorrow with unions and Labor state ministers - after the Coalition yesterday gave up on the amendments it and all other non-government senators had sought.
Virgin Blue will have to contend with a new enterprise-based union, after Fair Work Australia yesterday approved the registration of a new independent organisation to represent the airline's pilots.
The protected action ballot at Australia Post will not go ahead tomorrow, after Fair Work Australia yesterday - in a ruling the CEPU said was "bitterly disappointing" - found the union was not genuinely trying to reach agreement.
Ground staff employed by international airlines could be up to $300 a week worse off under the AIRC's proposed modern award for the sector, according to the ASU, which now says it is considering a legal challenge to Friday's award modernisation decision.
The Federal Government has set up a system of workplace and site-based pay rates for 457 visa workers, rather than the market-based regime it claims to be implementing, according to CFMEU national secretary John Sutton.
Australia might need to adopt part of New Zealand's good faith bargaining model, if Australia's version encourages "surface bargaining" and parties find they can't conclude agreements, according to a new paper by CPSU researchers.
HR practitioners don't see themselves as having a strategic role in driving environmental sustainability within their organisations - indeed they believe environmental improvement initiatives will be taken more seriously if initiated outside the HR department, according to a new university study.
A full bench of the Federal Court has dismissed the University of Western Australia's claim on the rights to a cancer treatment developed by its former professor of surgery, ruling there was no implied term in his contract of employment that gave it ownership of his inventions.
The Federal Court has rejected an ABCC bid for an injunction against the CFMEU after the union promised to comply with an earlier FWA order; and a labour-hire company has been fined for lodging an enterprise agreement for certification without having employees vote to approve the deal.
