The MEU has filed 10 "same-job, same-pay" applications targeting BHP coal mines in Queensland, seeking to lift the pay of about 1700 labour hire workers by between $10,000 and $40,000 a year and stamp out a model that has "spread like a cancer" in the industry.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus has declared "it's time” for unions to jettison their three-decades-old defensive stance and boldly take advantage of Labor’s IR law reforms to rebuild membership.
A "broad coalition" of unions will call at this week's ACTU Congress in Adelaide for the peak group to press the Albanese Labor Government to legislate next year to insert 10 days reproductive health leave into the NES, according to key affiliate the Queensland Council of Unions.
Ramsay Health Care has used competition laws to win orders restraining a ANMF advertising campaign, after the Federal Court accepted it had an arguable case that the union made false and misleading clams that might damage the company's reputation and scare off patients.
The SDA says its challenge to a Victorian/Tasmanian Aldi deal on the basis that it tries to circumvent new "same-job, same-pay" laws has prompted the company to quietly ditch similar provisions from a proposed SA deal immediately before an unsuccessful ballot.
The TWU says it will campaign for Aldi to sign a national road transport enterprise agreement and if necessary will use new Closing Loopholes provisions to force the retailer to the negotiating table.
The TWU says it will "deploy significant and focussed resources" on a campaign to recruit more gig workers, as the FWC prepares to exercise its new powers to set minimum standards in that sector and in road transport.
