AWU national vice president Paul Howes looks set to take over the leadership of the union when secretary Bill Shorten goes into Parliament later this year, after his sole challenger withdrew from the race.
Construction industry employers and employer groups are unanimous in wanting the ALP to deliver an IR regime for their sector that is as tough on unions, if not on individual employees, as the one that already exists. But they have divergent views on whether it can, and on whether building costs will rise if Labor does takes office federally.
A Federal Court full bench has overturned a decision not to penalise the CFMEU for coercing a subcontractor to pay about 50 workers when they were on strike at a Melbourne building site.
A Slater & Gordon IR lawyer who is performing Shadow IR Minister Julia Gillard's old job is quitting the firm to contest the federal election in a Melbourne inner-city seat for the Greens, which will be pushing the Opposition to hold the line against Work Choices, particularly on AWAs.
In a rare defeat, the AMWU has lost an application for a secret ballot for industrial action after the AIRC found the union did not give an employer a reasonable opportunity to respond to its bargaining claim.
ACCI has this evening disputed a claim by Shadow IR Minister Julia Gillard that she reached agreement today with construction employers on Labor's proposal to regulate IR in the industry.
Prime Minister John Howard has advised employers to "err on the side of caution" by ensuring new agreements provide for penalty rates and loadings until the new fairness test is legislated.
The NSW, Victorian and Queensland Governments have commissioned a study comparing employees' enforceable rights in pre and post-Work Choices agreements.
A full bench of the AIRC has quashed a reinstatement order made against Telstra last year in a case in which the CEPU had successfully relied on the dispute resolution provisions of a redundancy agreement rather than the Work Choices unfair dismissal laws to get its members' jobs back.
