The Victorian Government is urging the AEU to return to enterprise bargaining negotiations following yesterday's one-day state-wide strike by school teachers, but is insisting on productivity savings for pay rises in excess of its 3.25% annual limit on public sector wage increases.
The Labor Government has this afternoon released an exposure draft of the 10 minimum standards that, with its proposed new awards system, will form the safety net for employees from January 1, 2010.
The Senate has this afternoon referred Labor's IR transitional bill to an inquiry by the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education committee, which will be required to report back by April 28.
The ACTU has begun planning its campaign against the Coalition's decision to continue to support statutory individual contracts, with president Sharan Burrow indicating individual politicians will be targeted.
University funding will no longer be tied to universities offering AWAs to their employees, under legislation introduced to Parliament by Education Minister Julia Gillard this afternoon.
The Rudd Government today moved to set up its promised $14.6m advisory body to solve the skills shortage, to be made up of seven members with backgrounds in industry, training advice, economics and academia.
The Rudd Labor Government will ban AWAs in the federal public service, allow parties to pre-Work Choices agreements to extend them for up to three years, extend the life of NAPSAs, ban the unilateral termination of collective agreements, retain the Work Choices exceptional circumstances test for deals that fail the new no disadvantage test, and allow ITEAs to be offered on a take it or leave it basis, in its IR transitional bill introduced into parliament today by Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard.
On the eve of Labor introducing the first tranche of its IR reforms, new academic research says that its Forward with Fairness policy is a mixed bag for women in minimum wage sectors of the economy and fails to address the "fundamental disadvantages" they suffer.
