Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has accused both the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Workplace Relations Minister, Peter Reith, of being "mired in the industrial relations debate of past times".
The FSU says the 3% interim increase the CBA will pay its 25,000 award employees from the end of the month is a "downpayment" on a decent pay increase yet to be negotiated.
Victorian public servants have overwhelmingly endorsed a deal struck between the State Government and the CPSU that re-establishes core service-wide entitlements and puts an end to the Kennett Government's individual contracts regime.
The transmission of business provisions in the Workplace Relations Act should only apply to awards and not to certified agreements or AWAs, according to key employer organisation, the AiG.
Westpac IT employees who refuse to move to an outsourced provider will be entitled to 50% of their redundancy payment if they can't be redeployed within the bank, after the IRC partially rejected Westpac's bid for exemption from its redundancy obligations.
Officials of the Victorian branch of the AMWU - no strangers to pickets and strikes, as many a manufacturing employer could testify - are today unable to enter their own offices due to a dispute involving clerical employees.
The Yallourn Energy bargaining dispute spilt into the Victorian Supreme Court, Federal Court and IRC this week, as the three main Latrobe Valley power stations launched damages claims against the CFMEU (mining & energy division) and individual workers, and the power unions failed to stop the Commission issuing orders terminating the Yallourn bargaining periods.
