Labor's new shadow IR minister is prominent frontbencher and former SDA organiser Tony Burke, who in his youth won improved pay and conditions for paperboys after threatening to picket a newsagency.
Fifty retrenched employees are suing of one of the world's largest defence contractors for alleged underpayment of leave and redundancy entitlements expected to exceed $1 million, with some veteran workers arguing that AWA transitional instruments continue to apply.
Employers with workers on annualised salaries have only to pay superannuation on standard hours at ordinary rates of pay, a full Federal Court led by Chief Justice James Allsop has ruled.
A psychometric testing business engaged by child residential-care providers has failed to convince the FWC that it should not reveal its reasons for deeming "currently unsuitable" a supervisor now challenging his dismissal.
Newly-installed IR Minister Christian Porter has singled out the ailing enterprise bargaining system as one of his first priorities, highlighting the need to reduce "complexities" standing in the way of agreement-making.
The NUW has succeeded in its second run at a majority support determination covering a highly casualised workforce after overcoming objections to redacted petitions, texts and emails, evidence of violence and a shrinking of the eligible cohort to less than half that put forward by the company.
The FWC has rejected the ACTU's push for a "living wage", finding it would require increases in the minimum wage that posed a "significant risk of disemployment".
The Fair Work Commission has granted award-reliant workers a 3% increase, lifting the national minimum wage by $21.60 a week or 57 cents an hour in this year's annual wage review ruling.
The AWU has a new WA branch secretary following incumbent Mike Zoetbrood's departure in the wake of a controversial casual vacancy election for an honorary position late last year which attracted claims of "irregularities" and blackmail.
The Morrison Government's cabinet reshuffle transferring its industrial relations functions, bureaucracy and agencies to the Attorney-General's Department reinforces the sense the portfolio is an "afterthought", says a leading academic.
