The only non-Labor State Government has criticised the Fair Work Bill for extending union rights and exposing employers to "coercive" arbitration in its submission to the Senate inquiry into the proposed laws.
Workers at Alcoa's three alumina refineries in Western Australia look set to defer the 2009 pay rises prescribed in their enterprise agreements in a bid to secure their jobs against the gloomy economic outlook.
Adelaide University's Professor Andrew Stewart has criticised the Fair Work Bill's failure to allow reviews when employers refuse an employee's request for flexible work and its restrictions on agreement content, describing the latter as "the one aspect of the Bill which represents an unequivocal departure from Forward with Fairness".
The Ai Group has called for a major overhaul of the Fair Work legislation's agreement-making rules, including the abolition of the new low paid bargaining stream, in its submission to the Senate inquiry into the bill.
Superannuation interest groups have attacked the default fund provisions in modern awards, saying they constitute "mandated" monopolies and oligopolies that favour industry super funds.
The AIRC has upheld a Coles Group subsidiary's dismissal of a storeworker for eating a Snickers bar thrown to him by another worker after it fell out of a broken box.
Close to 1400 Qantas unlicensed maintenance engineers in Melbourne and Sydney have voted in favour of a new enterprise agreement that will deliver total pay rises of about 20% over four years to most workers and a renewed focus on job security.
The shop union is urging the Senate to amend the Fair Work Bill to provide employees with an "unequivocal" right to have disputes arbitrated, make it mandatory for employers to provide confidential information during good faith bargaining and to require agreements to meet the BOO test throughout their life, rather than just at the start of their terms.
DEEWR has rebuffed claims the Fair Work Bill will result in more demarcation disputes, allow widespread compulsory arbitration and pattern bargaining and hurt the economy in its submission to the Senate committee inquiry into the proposed laws.
The ACTU says the Government has failed to deliver its pre-election IR policy by restricting the ability of unions to use bargaining to strengthen unfair dismissal and union entry rights in the Fair Work Bill, the peak body says in a lengthy submission to the Senate inquiry into the legislation.
