Adelaide University Professor of Law Andrew Stewart has told a Senate hearing that the Albanese Government should withdraw and rework a contentious aspect of its Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, suggesting there is a "problem with the legislation" if as a technical expert he is unable to answer a simple question about coverage in the single interest bargaining provisions.
A large employer has been fined almost $100,000 after a court rejected its "bare apology" for requiring a newly-arrived migrant to work 12 extra hours a week for more than three years.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has warned that the prescriptive amendments sought by business and employer groups to the Secure Jobs Bill's multi-employer stream could render it as "ineffective and unusable" as the 13-year old Act's low paid bargaining stream, which hasn't been used since 2014 because parties "gave up on it".
BHP Coal is facing penalties and compensation payments for unlawfully "demobilising" a labour hire truck driver shortly after she refused to dump a load in a poorly-lit area, while it is also accused of "sophistry" in arguing that she had not properly addressed its potential motives.
New academic research suggests that one of Labor's signature legislative changes - halting unilateral terminations of expired agreements - is a solution to a problem less prevalent than widely understood, but the researchers nevertheless say the amendments will make the "strong-arm bargaining tactic" less attractive and remove the "shadow effect" of such threats.
The House of Representatives this afternoon passed an amended version of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill as the Albanese Government stepped up lobbying of key Senate crossbencher, David Pocock, to support the legislation.
A senior FWC member has described a public transport agency's vaccination policy as "pressur[ing]" workers to "give up [the] fundamental right" to bodily integrity, before ordering it to pay five train drivers sidelined because of their non-compliance.
The High Court is poised to consider two significant IR matters next week, beginning with NSW unions' bid to overturn a State law restricting election campaign spending, followed by Qantas seeking special leave to challenge a finding that the airline unlawfully shunned a TWU in-house tender when it outsourced the work of 2000 ground-handlers.
