Employers who pressure migrant workers into breaching their temporary visa conditions face criminal charges and increased fines under changes soon to be introduced by the Albanese Government.
The business advertising campaign against Labor's "same job, same pay" proposal claims to represent a broad coalition but is hosted, authorised and fronted by the Minerals Council, after one of its heavyweight members, BHP, publicly dumped on the Government's plan.
The Minns Government has announced a 4% pay offer for NSW public sector workers, plus a 0.5% superannuation boost, along with the creation of an interest-based bargaining taskforce headed by former FWC deputy president Anna Booth and former State IRC president Roger Boland.
A judge has rejected a business owner's claim of unlawful sacking because he repeatedly accused his co-owner brother of bullying and conflicts of interest, finding their "poisonous" relationship unrelated to his dismissal for ignoring a direction to stay away from the office while under investigation for allegedly harassing employees.
The AFP has won the right to be represented by an external lawyer in a "complex" anti-bullying case involving at least 18 witnesses to be heard by the FWC in a fortnight.
Today's FWC's minimum wage decision brings to an end the quarter-century-long alignment between the National Minimum Wage and the lowest (C14) pay classification in modern awards, while IR Minister Tony Burke says the ruling is the "best ever" result for workers.
A welcome ceremony for new FWC member Sharon Durham has heard the Queensland IR Minister's former chief of staff discovered IR was her thing at 17 years old while working as a services union print room assistant and learnt the 80/20 bargaining rule at the plumbers union.
The FWC's minimum wage panel says resolving gender equality issues for award-reliant workers is now firmly on the tribunal's agenda after identifying "significant issues" in this year's Annual Wage Review, pointing to possible undervaluation that might be a "systemic problem, of pre-FW Act origins".
The FWC's expert panel has this morning approved a 5.75% increase in all award rates and an effective 8.6% rise in the national minimum wage, emphasising that the decision would have a limited effect on the broader economy and would not spur a wage-price spiral.
In what is believed to be the first interlocutory injunction to provide union entry for discussion purposes, the Federal Court has ordered a project head contractor to permit ETU organisers to access labour hire linesworkers on a 900km, $2.2 billion interstate power transmission interconnector.
