A seafarer who lost thousands of dollars in wages because the OEA wrongly calculated that his AWA passed the no disadvantage test is unlikely to have any legal recourse, a Senate Estimates committee was told yesterday.
Annual wage increases in major enterprise agreements might have reached a 3.75% plateau, according to a preliminary analysis of major deals registered in the December quarter last year.
In the first major transmission of business ruling since the High Court's landmark PP Consultants ruling last year, a Federal Court full bench has ruled that Telstra awards and agreements did not carry over to work outsourced to Stellar Call Centres.
Some 235 executives at the ABC have won a pay increase of 5% over 12 months, plus a 2% lump sum backpaid more than two years, under a new enterprise agreement struck with APESMA.
Manufacturing employers' peak body Ai Group says a safety net increase of $8 to $10 a week, along with recent tax cuts and interest rate cuts, would deliver the equivalent of the $28 increase the ACTU is seeking for around 850,000 low-paid workers.
After the weekend's landslide Labor win in the Queensland election, two ministers in the Beattie Government's first term appear to be the most likely contenders for the IR Minister's job left vacant by Paul Braddy, who has retired.
The Minister for Workplace Relations, Tony Abbott, has advised all public sector department heads against signing deals that include bargaining fees for non-union workers - at the same time as another union has announced plans to charge non-unionists for benefits won.
