Close to 1400 Qantas unlicensed maintenance engineers in Melbourne and Sydney have voted in favour of a new enterprise agreement that will deliver total pay rises of about 20% over four years to most workers and a renewed focus on job security.
The shop union is urging the Senate to amend the Fair Work Bill to provide employees with an "unequivocal" right to have disputes arbitrated, make it mandatory for employers to provide confidential information during good faith bargaining and to require agreements to meet the BOO test throughout their life, rather than just at the start of their terms.
DEEWR has rebuffed claims the Fair Work Bill will result in more demarcation disputes, allow widespread compulsory arbitration and pattern bargaining and hurt the economy in its submission to the Senate committee inquiry into the proposed laws.
The ACTU says the Government has failed to deliver its pre-election IR policy by restricting the ability of unions to use bargaining to strengthen unfair dismissal and union entry rights in the Fair Work Bill, the peak body says in a lengthy submission to the Senate inquiry into the legislation.
The Queensland Anti-Discrimination Tribunal has awarded substantial compensation to a woman who suffered serious depression after being told she must convert to Catholicism or lose her position as the head of a local St Vincent De Paul Society group.
The Federal Magistrates Court has rescinded a key order made in its landmark Keldote Pty Ltd v Riteway Transport decision, after finding it failed to accord natural justice to the trucking company in its initial ruling.
BHP Billiton has called for changes to the Fair Work Bill to give Fair Work Australia the power to intervene in demarcation disputes between unions, which it says are likely to increase under the new laws.
The ABCC substantially increased its use of its compulsory examination power in 2007-08, almost tripling the number of notices to attend and answer questions, its annual report reveals.
The AIRC has reduced more than 500 awards running to 30,000 pages to just 17 modern awards and 607 pages, in the crucial first of four stages of award modernisation to be completed by the end of this year. The largest of the new instruments to take effect on January 1 next year - the modern manufacturing award - has just 89 pages.
Workplace Express taking a xmas break; Submissions for Fair Work Bill inquiry due January 9; CPSU leadership team returned; WA calls for federal pay equity unit; and IR academics conference to feature US and Canadian keynote speakers.
