"New economy" factors such as increased computer use and growth of e-commerce could generate a second wave of labour productivity gains that would sustain the substantial gains in labour productivity achieved in the past decade, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The increase in skilled employment in the past two decades has been partly responsible for increased inequality of earnings, according to a new Productivity Commission paper.
An IRC full bench has varied piece rates for shearers despite non-adherence to the May safety net decision's process for fixing rates, but has rejected a bid for special consideration of the difficulties of enterprise bargaining in the pastoral industry.
Directions hearings that were set down for today in Email's Federal Court bid to derail pattern bargaining at a corporate level have now been adjourned until December.
With the Olympics now consuming Sydney, the city's IR courts and tribunals have all sought to avoid logistical problems by listing urgent matters only.
Three days after the metal industry unions in Victoria withdrew about 52 Campaign 2000 protected bargaining notices that the AiG was seeking to suspend, they have initiated 12 of them again.
Three years since the eruption of one of the most bitter coal disputes of the last decade, unions at Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley No.1 mine in NSW are today holding report-back meetings with workers on a deal struck with the company earlier this week.
While maintenance unions at Godfrey Hirst in Geelong have seized on developments in the Federal Court yesterday as a blow to contracting out, the company maintains they're misrepresenting what is really happening.
