The AIRC award modernisation full bench today published the second round of draft modern awards - bringing about substantial rationalisation in construction, finance, manufacturing and call centres - and called for submissions on how to deal with transitional provisions and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard's amendments to the award modernisation request.
Monash IR academics call for greater dispute prevention role for FWA; Don't let AMWU misrepresentations influence Fair Work Bill, says Cochlear; NUW state branches accuse national union of asset "smash and grab"; Right to request too weak, says family expert; Right of entry provisions breach ALP IR mandate, says Minerals Council; Business Council seeking greater enterprise focus; Recruitment peak body says Fair Work agreements system not suited to on-hire work; and Sex workers seek to be covered by modern award safety net.
Airline operations across Australia could be disrupted by industrial action as soon as next month after air traffic controllers' union Civil Air this week won AIRC orders for a strike ballot of its members.
About 60,000 NSW public school and TAFE teachers will receive a 4.4% pay rise backdated to January 1 and 3.8% increases in January 2010 and 2011, after the NSW Teachers Federation and the State Government accepted a NSW IRC recommendation to resolve their long-running dispute.
Some 3,000 Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs employees have won improved parental leave entitlements and a 14.1% pay rise over three years under a new union collective agreement.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull have found themselves in uncommon agreement on the need for unions and workers to help avoid job losses by exercising restraint during the economic downturn.
The only non-Labor State Government has criticised the Fair Work Bill for extending union rights and exposing employers to "coercive" arbitration in its submission to the Senate inquiry into the proposed laws.
Workers at Alcoa's three alumina refineries in Western Australia look set to defer the 2009 pay rises prescribed in their enterprise agreements in a bid to secure their jobs against the gloomy economic outlook.
Adelaide University's Professor Andrew Stewart has criticised the Fair Work Bill's failure to allow reviews when employers refuse an employee's request for flexible work and its restrictions on agreement content, describing the latter as "the one aspect of the Bill which represents an unequivocal departure from Forward with Fairness".
The Ai Group has called for a major overhaul of the Fair Work legislation's agreement-making rules, including the abolition of the new low paid bargaining stream, in its submission to the Senate inquiry into the bill.
