AWU calls for ground rules for Pacific Island migration scheme; Coalition criticises Labor for blocking FOI IR request; AIRC refuses strike ballot over linkage of side deed to enterprise deal; and Federal Government puts $4m into no sweat shop campaign.
In the first use of a provision of the BCII Act that building unions have long labelled draconian, a Victorian CFMEU official is facing the possibility of six months jail after he refused to attend an ABCC interview.
NSW unions will seek endorsement of an IR policy that would seek to roll back more of Work Choices than proposed by the Rudd Government and favour harmonisation over a unitary national system, at an NSW ALP conference that will be dominated by debate over the Iemma Goverrment’s plans to privatise and lease publicly-owned power assets.
Removing same-sex bias to affect leave, workers comp and super; PM calls for greater mobility for public servants; New centre to redeploy APS workers displaced by Rudd razor gang; WO can prosecute pre-Work Choices AWA duress, court finds; Full bench rejects unfair dismissal appeal by Coles workers accused of property damage; AIRC reinstates stevedore without backpay, after finding employer evidence “surreal"; Catholic church urges AFPC not to take away tax cuts for low-paid Burrow to meet SA employees over workers compensation; and World HR Congress coming to Australia in 2012.
The employer group that lobbied hardest against the ALP's plans to abolish AWAs - the AMMA - now says that reviving statutory individual contracts "may not be necessary" if the Rudd Government's common law contracts stream proves a workable alternative.
Unions feared there would be a rush to lodge AWAs before they disappeared permanently from the IR landscape on March 28, but the surge never eventuated, according to data released by the Workplace Authority today. However, the backlog of Work Choices agreements remains a considerable problem, with 150,000 yet to be finalised - a job likely to take at least six months.
NSW unions will re-mobilise their powerful Your Rights at Work grassroots network to campaign for the Rudd Government to introduce 28 weeks paid maternity leave. They will also push the State ALP to adopt the maternity policy at its conference this weekend.
The Workplace Authority has published a new 40-page policy guide to agreement-making and the no-disadvantage test under the Labor Government's transitional IR laws.
The AIRC's President, Justice Geoffrey Giudice, has today released a draft list of 19 priority industries for the award modernisation process, two draft model award flexibility clauses and a proposed timetable for completing the priority modern awards. In a statement on the first major phase of the award modernisation process, he has also announced the dates on which the Commission will sit to consult on those drafts, which he said were "a starting point".
Award modernisation will involve "starting from scratch" rather than dragging prescriptive and unwieldy old awards "kicking and screaming" into the 21st Century, Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard told a conference in Sydney today.
