The IRC lacked impartiality in a recent case involving alleged physical violence by union organisers, reflecting a misplaced community tolerance for criminal conduct in the industrial relations arena, Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott told the HR Nicholls Society's 22nd conference in Melbourne on Saturday evening.
The campaign by IR Conservatives against purported bias amongst the Federal Court's former IR Court judges has led to a significant moderation of the court's approach, according to a leading right wing commentator.
After making only one appointment to the federal IRC in its first four-and-a-half years in office, the Howard Government today announced its fifth addition to the bench since December - solicitor Gareth Grainger.
The ALP will introduce tough new outsourcing rules for the public service, end performance bonuses, introduce a service-wide framework agreement, and scrap AWAs if elected to office, according to the party's spokesperson on Public Administration and Government Services, Senator John Faulkner.
A peace deal between the Geraldton Port Authority (GPA) and the MUA that delivers workers a 39% pay increase and the employer substantial flexibilities after a three-year battle has coincided with the GPA escaping a fine for frustrating Federal Court orders to make its stevedoring labour available to all port users.
The NSW Police Service has been ordered to pay $6,500 in damages for its direct discrimination against an officer on the grounds of disability when a "blanket policy" denied him the opportunity for a promotion.
A five-member bench of the High Court has found that an employee who was severely injured in a car accident after stopping to have a meal with her grandmother was on her way home from work and was entitled to make a journey claim.
The ACTU looks like succeeding across the board in its bid to extend parental leave to casual employees, with its main opponent, the Australian Hoteliers' Association (AHA), now likely to support the change.
The Federal Court has found that there was no serious case to be tried in a Western Australian coal mining company's bid for penalties and damages against the CFMEU (mining & energy division) and its State secretary over industrial action taken during a bargaining dispute.
Challengers to the CFMEU construction division's national leadership today presented a petition to the union which they say provides the basis for a referendum to provide for direct election of leaders by members.
