Rio Tinto has won a battle for the IRC to terminate an expired enterprise agreement at its Mt Thorley coal mine, in a move expected to be closely watched by other employers locked in bargaining battles with militant unions.
In the first decision it has published where it has refused an AWA, the IRC has ruled that an individual contract that removed overtime and replaced it with days in lieu failed the no disadvantage test.
The labour hire sector is preparing to hand to Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith a legislative proposal to circumvent the recent Federal Court decisions on transmission of business.
Disruptive wildcat industrial action could result from the measures in Reith’s second wave that restrict protected action by unions, University of Sydney Professor of Industrial Law Ron McCallum told the Senate inquiry into Peter Reith's second wave IR bill.
Employees working more than 11 hours a day had more than twice the rate of heart attacks than those doing only seven to nine hours, according to an overseas study cited by the ACTU at the launch of a new campaign on working hours.
In a decision likely to accelerate the growth of labour hire, a full bench of the Industrial Relations Commission has ruled that a teacher supplied by a labour hire firm had no employer-employee relationship with the educational institution where she worked.
ACTU secretary-elect Greg Combet has revealed plans to restructure the ACTU along the lines of the organisation’s blueprint for the wider union movement, unions@work.
Opposition leader Kim Beazley has reaffirmed the commitment to abolish the Employment Advocate contained in the IR policy Labor took to the last election.
The Democrat Senator likely to have the key influence on the passage of Peter Reith’s second wave WR legislation has identified extension of award regulation into award-free areas as a vital issue the second wave has neglected.
