Australia's safety net is "deeply flawed" as a mechanism to ensure no worker falls below minimum standards, and has particularly failed in non-standard employment, according to law academic Rosemary Owens.
The Queensland redundancy test case will go ahead, with a full bench of the State IRC rejecting the AiG's application to adjourn the matter indefinitely pending the resolution of the federal test case.
The disintegration of labour law theory's traditional territory because of labour market deregulation might have opened the way to considering the needs of workers who don't fit the traditional industrial mould, according to a UK academic.
The full bench of the High Court has held that the introduction of the Howard Government's IR laws in 1997 ended the role of the federal IRC in dealing with roping-in disputes in Queensland that had started a year earlier.
Rio Tinto, which earlier this year failed in its bid to get up non-union federal collective deals in three of its four Pilbara sites, has joined other WA resource industry companies in offering its workers AWAs.
The Hilton Hotel in Sydney has denied LHMU claims that it is planning to use strikebreakers when workers walk off the job for 24-hours on Saturday over the hotel's redundancy offer.
The IRC has rejected an unfair dismissal claim by a worker sacked for making personal calls during work hours, after accepting that the calls were related to the operation of another business and therefore contravened the terms of his AWA.
The CEPU claims Australia Post has threatened to remove union dues deduction provisions unless it stops generating negative media coverage, but the employer denies this is the case.
Most of the CPSU's divisional and sectional leadership has been retained without going to an election, after the close of nominations for November's poll.
