The Fair Work Bill's agreement rules radically depart from 15 years of history, with changes such as removing the distinction between union and non-union agreements. But in league with the good faith bargaining provisions, the agreement rules give unions an opportunity to rebuild, particularly in partly-unionised workplaces, according to the national legal officer for the CFMEU (mining and energy division).
The NTEU has won an order for a protected action ballot at Victoria University after the AIRC accepted it was not pursuing prohibited content in negotiations.
The Federal Court has found that Melbourne electrical parts manufacturer Heinemann Electric Pty Ltd underpaid 35 workers when it docked them an entire day's pay on each of five days they held overtime bans in mid-2006.
The DEEWR will hold a public briefing on the Federal Government's Fair Work Bill 2008 on December 11, ahead of a two-week Senate inquiry conducting hearings around the country in the last week of January and mid-February.
The Fair Work Bill's better off overall test lifts the bar on the current no disadvantage test and is likely to result in better outcomes for employees, a leading IR practitioner says.
The Commonwealth DPP has advised the ABCC that it withdrew its charge against the CFMEU's Noel Washington because the construction watchdog's original interview that the union official allegedly refused to attend was adjourned.
The Fair Work Bill's severing of the link between IR tribunal members' pay and that of Federal Court judges, and the removal of judges' pension entitlements for presidential members, will make it harder to attract talented lawyers to the new institution, according to former senior AIRC member, Paul Munro, while Monash University's Anthony Forsyth says FWA replaces Work Choices' failed private ADR model of dispute resolution with a UK-inspired focus on mediation and prevention.
A senior workplace lawyer says employers could face a new type of discrimination claim from employees under the Fair Work legislation, which provides a low-cost avenue for such cases on an expanded range of grounds and with uncapped compensation for all employees, regardless of whether they are covered by federal or state IR systems.
The ALP's changes to the Work Choices laws on industrial action amount to "fine tuning rather than radical change," according to Slater & Gordon's Phil Pasfield.
