Mine workers at BHP Coal's Appin, Cordeaux and Tower collieries in the Illawarra region of NSW will revert to award conditions, after the IRC yesterday terminated the expired enterprise agreements for the three pits.
BHP Iron Ore will continue to be frustrated from offering individual contracts to its mine workers, after the Federal Court today stayed last week's ruling that removed barriers to the individual contracts strategy.
The Victorian County Court has fined the Victorian branch of the AMWU $12,500 over a raft of industrial action taken by maintenance workers at an animal waste recycling plant while their enterprise agreement was still in force.
The NSW IRC will have to look at whether enterprise agreements up for approval contain an anti-discrimination clause under new principles adopted by a five-member full bench.
In another victory for casual workers - this time in the field rather than the IRC - a resort in the Blue Mountains, NSW, has backed down on its earlier decision to contract out 40 casual cleaners' jobs.
In two separate cases brought by the Employment Advocate, the Federal Court has found that the Queensland branches of the CFMEU (construction division) and the BLF and three union organisers breached freedom of association laws when attempting to get workers to join up.
Thousands of Queensland public sector casuals will be able to receive pay increments for the first time and part-time workers will have earlier access to them following a recent State IRC decision.
Casuals in the metal industry will by March be entitled to the bulk of the new benefits awarded to them by the federal IRC in its landmark job security decision handed down during the holiday period.
The Federal Court's finding that BHP Iron Ore's individual contracts push was lawful is a major blow to the union movement, striking at the very heart of what union membership at the company's Pilbara operations now means.
