Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has defended award modernisation against accusations from unions and employer groups that their members will be disadvantaged despite proposed transitional arrangements.
The Federal Government has effectively set a 3% cap on annual pay rises across the Australian public service over the next two years under a new bargaining framework that also, for the first time, enshrines workplace delegates' rights.
Changes to key entitlements including wages, casual and part-time loadings and penalty rates in many modern awards will be deferred until mid-2010 to help employers cope with new phasing-in arrangements, the AIRC has ruled.
The High Court has upheld an employee's appeal and ordered the AIRC to reconsider his case after finding successive tribunals and courts wrongly applied the doctrine of repudiation in rejecting his unfair dismissal claim.
The NSW IRC’s President, Justice Roger Boland, has urged the Federal Government, in its negotiations with the State Government, to make his members dual appointees so they can work in both federal and state jurisdictions, while Attorney-General Robert McClelland emphasised the Federal Government’s commitment to aligning domestic IR laws with international standards.
ABS National Accounts data indicates hours have fallen but productivity is up; and the AIRC has today released its important ruling on how transitional arrangements will apply to priority and stage 2 awards.
Failure to comply with the Fair Work Act's good faith principles is a relevant factor in considering whether a bargaining representative is genuinely trying to reach agreement, Fair Work Australia has ruled.
Employers would have to allocate a percentage of annual payroll to workplace health programs under potential legislative changes tabled in the final report of the Rudd Government's Preventative Health Taskforce.
