NSW teachers endorse 24-hour stoppage; Police rally in Victoria; AIG, ACTU and Sex Discrimination Commissioner jointly call for paid maternity leave; Survey underscores growing eldercare burden for knowledge workers; and Migrant women workers call for better protections.
The coal mining union is lobbying the Rudd Government to introduce special legislation to maintain its "unique" long service leave scheme once the National Employment Standards take effect, and has already made representations to Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard, according to its submission on the NES.
BHP Billiton says the Rudd Government's proposed maximum working hours standard must be amended to accommodate long hours worked in short periods by managerial and professional employees in the mining industry.
The ALP's national employment standards should include a minimum wage and deal with issues including the cashing out of annual and personal leave, while the AIRC should be required to establish a miscellaneous award to cover non-managerial workers who fall through the gaps, according to the University of Adelaide's Professor Andrew Stewart.
CRS workers reject non-union agreement; OHS review to consider harmonisation; Government opposes MUA request for waterfront dispute Cabinet documents as anniversary of 1998 dispute arrives; Lack of skills biggest impediment to quick response to climate change; and ABC launches 'green at work' website
The Productivity Commission is seeking feedback by June 2 on questions surrounding a national paid parental leave scheme, such as whether it should be funded by employers, be long enough to provide for breast-feeding and foster family-well-being and how to ensure it doesn't replace voluntary privately-funded leave.
The ACCI has made a raft of recommendations on the Federal Government's draft national employment standards, arguing that high income earners should be exempt from some of the entitlements; that there should be a "proper inquiry" before introducing a national long service leave standard; that there should be a legislated minimum wage for non award workers; that the reference to maximum working hours be removed; that employees should be required to take six weeks leave after giving birth; that jury leave be unpaid; and that small businesses with 15 full-time equivalent employees be exempt from paying redundancy.
Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens today agreed in principle that allowing bargaining on a wider range of matters would be positive for productivity, as both sides of politics sought to draw him into supporting their IR policy positions in his evidence to the House Economics Committee.
Who should manage organisational responses to the challenges arising from global warming - HR or internal environmental experts? That question was a matter of controversy at a Workplace Research Centre conference in Sydney yesterday, where the environmental sustainability director of a major construction company said handing the job to HR was the "blue screen of death" for the issue.
ACTU wants debate about what rights mean; CPSU-SPSF to seek 9% a year for general staff at universities; HR practitioners want definition of reasonable business grounds, not guidance, says AHRI; and Johnston is back, with ABCC in pursuit.
