FWC accepts PC report as submission rather than evidence; Heerey report due at end of month; Patrick talks continuing; Productivity portfolio dropped in Turnbull's reshuffle; and MUA tells members not to respond to FWO overtures.
Patrick and the MUA have today begun four days of assisted negotiations, despite an FWC full bench yesterday clearing the way for the union to resume industrial action.
Some 35,000 Department of Human Services employees began voting on Friday on a proposed deal delivering a 2% annual pay rise, while the FWC has recently approved agreements for three mid-sized APS agencies providing the same quantum to about 8,500 employees.
An FWC full bench has today overruled a decision that an employer breached good faith bargaining obligations when it insisted on conducting enterprise agreement negotiations by teleconference rather than face-to-face meetings.
The Fair Work Commission, in a decision published today, says it suspended the MUA's protected industrial action at Patrick container terminals to allow further private negotiations to be assisted by presidential member Anna Booth.
Stevedore Patrick will tomorrow ask the FWC to impose a cooling-off period to stop MUA members taking further industrial action at its container ports.
An FWC presidential member has expressed "wonder" at having to reject an agreement for a major labour hire company that turned the simple process of providing employees with a bargaining representation notice into a "debacle".
The FWC has ruled that a company's enterprise agreement obliges it provide "meaningful work" to redeployees and operates as an exception to the general rule that there is no common law right to be provided with work.
As Parliament prepares to rise for the year, the Turnbull Government has introduced legislation containing the provisions removed from the Fair Work Act amending legislation that came into effect last week.
The AWU and Cleanevent are awaiting a Federal Court ruling on their legal tussle over the modern award to cover cleaners at the Spotless group subsidiary.
