Good faith bargaining page 4 of 16

Apple Australia has agreed to return to negotiations with three unions, which have sought bargaining orders against the IT giant.

Sydney Trains' request for extra notice of RTBU plans to turn off Opal readers and gates so it could safely do so itself has been rejected by the FWC, a senior member observing that on the employer's own evidence it would only make any potential disruption worse.

A prominent IR academic has told today's jobs summit that the optimism that attended the Fair Work Act's introduction in 2009 was "misplaced", with workers in the years since unable to effectively exercise power when bargaining.

Unions are accusing Apple of trying to ram through a deal that could have employees working up to 60 hours a week without overtime, with the ASU and the SDA calling for more time to consult and RAFFWU seeking 5% a year and to claw back alleged underpayments.

Shell Australia has after failing in its bid to suspend protected action on its Prelude floating LNG platform decided to delay major maintenance work on the northern WA facility for almost a year.

In what unions have decried as a "hyper-aggressive" industrial relations tactic, Shell Australia has begun shutting down its massive Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility after receiving notice of new work bans covering the berthing and loading of tankers.

Union members have this week endorsed a 6%-a-year bargaining claim that has now been served on the ABC.

The NSW Opposition has promised today that if it takes power at the March election, it will scrap the decade-old public sector wages cap and replace it with a productivity-based bargaining system.

The TWU is decrying the Flying Kangaroo's decision to seek special leave from the High Court to challenge the full Federal Court ruling that it took unlawful adverse action when it contracted-out its ground handling functions to prevent workers from exercising their workplace rights to bargain and engage in industrial action, while rival Virgin Australia has told its workforce that it will end its wage freeze.

An unregistered union accusing major employers of refusing to include it in bargaining meetings with its rival warns it undermines collective bargaining, after the FWC this month supported Coles' decision not to include a paid bargaining agent in meetings with the UWU.