A review of the Fair Work Bill and the union movement's response to the global financial crisis dominated the first day of the ACTU’s executive meeting in Melbourne today.
Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Michael Keenan has pledged the Opposition will not "unnecessarily frustrate" Labor's Fair Work Bill but maintained that "things look gloomy" given the Federal Government's approach to negotiations on other pieces of legislation.
Unfinished business after Fair Work Bill on ACTU executive's agenda; Service sector examples convinced Howard on 100-employee exemption; No room for bargaining fees under Fair Work Bill: Gillard; Victoria University staff plan further industrial action; and AWU launches new union for stable workers.
The Your Rights at Work campaign could have been very different if leadership in the ACTU and Union NSW had embraced calls from some unions for an old-style "feet in the street" campaign, a new report has revealed.
CPSU members back industrial action at Telstra; Stewart recommends national regulation for child employment; and $1m haul from employers whose deals failed fairness test
New equal pay orders available under the Fair Work Bill have the potential to be easier to get and more far reaching than under current laws, but IR experts say much will depend on how FWA interprets the new provisions.
The AIRC has found that a CFMEU (construction division) organiser who got into a heated argument with a project manager after being told, incorrectly, that posters he'd put up in the lunch shed the day before had been thrown out did not on that occasion breach his entry rights, with the Commission noting it was "a construction site not a kindergarten".
The Federal Government's move to harmonise OHS laws system suffered a major setback last night, with Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard officially laying aside her Safe Work Australia bill after the non-Government senators again insisted on the amendments the Government had already rejected.
Employers looking to outsource will, under Labor's Fair Work Bill, face the same uncertainty they did before Work Choices introduced the "sole or dominant reason" test, while the new legislation's broader discrimination regime will also increase prospective employees' rights, according to Blake Dawson senior associate Michael Tamvakologos.
