While unions have given qualified support to the bulk of the Federal Government's proposed changes to the 457 visa laws, employer organisations have argued that the increased costs and obligations on businesses would discourage them from using the scheme and that the prohibition on using visa holders as strike-breakers raised serious legal difficulties.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow is calling for Labor to expand employees' right to request flexible work and to extend its proposed multi-employer bargaining system for low-paid employees. She is also urging a new approach to gender pay equity, noting that "inequity exists at all levels" and citing executive HR managers, where the gender gap is "a massive 43 per cent".
The CFMEU (construction division) has accused the MBAV's executive of hypocrisy after the employer organisation publicly criticised a new in-principle agreement for the Victorian construction sector that it had helped negotiate.
Some 8,000 Brisbane City Council workers will receive a 4.5% increase, under a one-year extension to the organisation's 2005-08 agreement with unions. The deal also changes procedures for dealing with employees who have recurrent sick leave absences.
Government subsidies may be contributing to escalating childcare costs, despite them having only a weak impact on increasing women's participation in the workforce, according to analysis by the Centre for Independent Studies.
The AIRC has dismissed an application by the ABCC to revoke the permit of a CFMEU organiser after finding he was not exercising relevant entry rights during two visits to a building site near Bathurst in NSW last year.
Inflation result to heighten wage-price spiral fears; Give workers carbon permits, says AWU; AMWU says polling shows members want Government investment in low carbon technologies; and Work Choices advisor Briggs wins Liberal preselection.
The ACTU is pressing the Rudd Government to amend its transitional legislation and award modernisation request to ensure workers are not worse off and extend the December 31 deadline for completing the priority modern awards.
Teachers in Western Australian public schools will receive pay rises of between 15.84% and 21.67% over three years - making them the best paid in Australia - under a breakthrough agreement between the Carpenter State Government and the State School Teachers' union ahead of the arbitration of their long-running dispute.
