Energy supplier Country Energy has agreed to provide its female employees with 12 weeks paid maternity leave, after previously giving parents no paid leave.
The newly-formed Federal Magistrates Court has made its first agreement directly with employees, while Family Court judges' associates have moved off AWAs and onto a union agreement.
The CPSU has asked Employment Advocate Jonathan Hamberger to help employees pursue remedies for alleged FOA breaches at Stellar Call Centres, while Hamberger has taken issue with last week's Workplace Express report on the issue.
A court has awarded a female employee $12,500 in damages for sexual harassment and sexual and racial discrimination, even though it found she wasn't a truthful witness and had herself engaged in inappropriate conduct.
Employers in Victoria won't be barred from using photographs to help them to recall job applicants, despite a tribunal's refusal to provide an anti-discrimination exemption for such a practice, according to a leading employment lawyer.
The Federal Opposition has revealed that if it is able to abolish AWAs, it might also prevent existing AWAs from running for their full term of up to three years.
Employment Advocate Jonathan Hamberger has conceded that AWAs at Stellar Call Centres Pty Ltd could breach the WR Act's freedom of association provisions - and that he has no power to do anything about it.
Democrats leader Senator Natasha Stott Despoja has signalled a broadening of the minor party's IR agenda to encompass work and life issues and protection of workers with poor or no formal employment regulation, following her appointment of a high-profile new IR advisor.
The CFMEU has called for State legislation to create a criminal offence of industrial manslaughter, after the NSW IRC fined an employer $93,000 over the death of an employee during the construction phase of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
