National Parts workers to get GEERs; Another $66,000 fine for Merringtons; Liberals press Labor on "no worker worse off" guarantee; CFMEU continue to fight to abolish ABCC; CPSU seeking redeployment of redundant fairness test workers; More workers means more time spent working, says ABS; and Productivity Commission identifies areas to increase workforce participation.
Uncertainty remains about the future creation and publication of pay scales after the Government's removal of the task from the Australian Fair Pay Commission, a Senate committee heard today.
Submissions to the Senate Committee inquiry into the Government's transitional IR bill are due by February 29, and public hearings will be held in Perth on March 4, Sydney on March 6, Melbourne on March 7, Brisbane on March 10 and Canberra on March 11, the Government has confirmed.
The new Team Jetstar collective agreement for cabin crew will enable the airline to match new entrant Tiger's employment cost base, chief executive Alan Joyce told Workplace Express this morning after parent company Qantas announced a record pre-tax half-year profit of $905 million.
The Rudd Government has today announced the membership of the business advisory groups that will help it to draft its substantive IR legislation and the fair dismissal code.
Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard says the Opposition is set to pass Labor's transitional IR legislation in time to meet the Government's Easter deadline, even though the Coalition-controlled Senate inquiry into the bill is not due to report until April 28.
The Federal Magistrates Court has ordered a Tasmanian salon to pay a $27,843 penalty for underpaying a young beautician, while an Adelaide motel must pay a $19,000 fine for an $8,544 redundancy underpayment, following a SA IR Court ruling.
Pay rates excluding bonuses have continued to grow at 4.2% a year in the December quarter of 2007, a level uncomfortably close to the RBA's 4.5% aggregate wage growth "ceiling", while rates of pay including bonuses have hit a new high.
A major defence contractor has been refused an exemption from racial discrimination laws to meet US security requirements, in a ruling by the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission.
On the same day that the Coalition dropped its opposition to axing the individual contracts it introduced to the statute books, Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has confirmed that secret Howard Government analysis of Work Choices AWAs leaked to a Sydney newspaper last year showed that 52% removed six or more protected conditions, 83% two or more and 89% one or more.
