Employers are treating Work Choices' requirement to provide unpaid maternity leave as an "aspirational goal" and believe the operational reasons exemption under the law gives them the right to sack or demote pregnant women, according to a new academic report commissioned by Victoria's Workplace Rights Advocate.
AIRC rejects employer bid for seven working days notice of industrial action; New anti-Work Choices commercial highlights Cochlear dispute; Animal liberationist gets off boycott charge after court says action environmental not industrial; Strike ballot granted for 1,000 Royal District Nursing Service nurses; ALP scores better against AMMA scorecard; and New role for Skene.
First settlement in ABCC's Perth 107 prosecutions; Teachers' pay rises in WA and SA; WO prosecutes A-Mart over unpaid work; AIG sets up legal practice; and Foster's workers back on the job.
More than 440 agreements have ceased to operate after failing the Government's fairness test, and the Workplace Authority has refused to pass another 15,277 until changes are made or more information provided, according to the WA's latest monthly statistics released today.
In one of two important Queensland test cases on whether councils are constitutional corporations, the state industrial court has thrown out - on the basis that it is not a registered organisation - a bid by the Local Government Association of Queensland to intervene.
The AIRC today refused the ANF's mass applications for ballots for industrial action by about 25,000 public sector nurses after expressing concern that notifications for the bargaining periods with more than 140 employers could have breached Work Choices' prohibition on seeking multi-employer agreements.
The Federal Government's Independent Contractors Act and its sham contractor amendments to the Workplace Relations Act have opened the way for new legal remedies in contract disputes, according to Turner Freeman Lawyers partner Steven Penning.
The Federal Court has fined Bovis Lend Lease $100,000 and restrained it for four years from entering into an agreement with the CFMEU (construction division) over hiring of subcontractors, in a trade practices action brought by the ACCC.
In one of the first decisions of its kind, the AIRC has allowed an employer to transfer to a federal award from a preserved state award that DEWR had found was in breach of the building industry code and guidelines, which meant the firm's access to government contracts was at risk.
