Woolworths will from next month become Australia's largest private sector employer to offer paid maternity leave, announcing today that it will introduce an eight week benefit for employees with two years or more service.
Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has notified the AIRC that she will modify her award modernisation request to make it clear that the Commission can make modern awards along "occupational" lines, saying she had mistakenly referred to "operational" lines.
Employees who transfer to a new employer in a transmission of business are required to serve a six month qualifying period - unless they expressly agree to forgo it - before they can claim unfair dismissal and be entitled to a redundancy payout for their prior service, an AIRC full bench majority has found.
A battle between the CPSU and the Australian Bureau of Statistics over access to public sector workers is about to intensify, with the union's Federal Court freedom of association case beginning tomorrow over the employer's ban on distribution of union bulletins to employees.
Government senators have today questioned the ABCC during a Senate Estimates hearing over why it has conducted 50% more construction site visits in Queensland than in Victoria, which it cites, along with WA, as the state with the greatest compliance problems.
The Workplace Authority is turning around agreements struck under the Rudd Government's IR laws within 20 days, as opposed to 30-plus days required for Coalition agreements, while employees at the agency once responsible for promoting AWAs last week voted up a union collective deal.
Unions and employers have begun using the provisions in the Rudd Government's transitional IR legislation allowing the variation and extension of pre-reform agreements for up to three years, with the AIRC extending at least four agreements last month.
The DEEWR is "on track" to have the Rudd Government's substantive IR legislation drafted by the end of the year and has seconded solicitors from law firms including Freehills to help with the task, the department told a Budget Estimates hearing in Canberra today.
The AIRC has reinstated an interstate truck driver sacked by Linfox Australia Pty Ltd for refusing a drug and alcohol test, after finding the company failed to explain the testing regime and wasn't authorised to conduct more than one test a year on each employee.
The Rudd Government's commitment to abolish key planks of Work Choices has put the future of Victoria's Office of the Workplace Rights Advocate under a cloud, with state IR Minister Rob Hulls today announcing an open-ended review of its role.
