Agreements and bargaining page 43 of 177

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

RAFFWU says it is seeking to replicate a Sydney bookstore deal that it describes as the "most significant" retail agreement in Australia, the FWC approving it this week after the employer had a second shot at explaining it to members.

Qantas engineers are to consider strike action after hitting the airline with a claim for a 12% pay increase under a one-year agreement, arguing it equates to a "modest" increase of 3% per annum taking into account a four-year pay freeze.

Maritime unions have sought to ramp up pressure on Australia's biggest tugboat operator Svitzer by claiming its attempts to terminate its current agreement after two years of deadlocked bargaining are an "embarrassment" to its parent company and in breach of global environmental, social and corporate governance commitments.

The FWC has this week approved a new agreement for the Australia Council of Social Service that lifts pay by the 4.6% rise in award minimum rates, provides new paid cultural and First Nations leave and enables employees to take a substitute public holiday for the January 26 "Invasion Day".

A proposed new agreement for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition provides substantial upfront pay rises and entitlements to five days paid climate disaster leave, 30 days paid gender affirmation leave and 12% super contributions, while it replaces workplace breastfeeding provisions with "chestfeeding" rights.

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.

In the wake of the RBA governor's warning about the risks of a wage-price spiral, new A-G's department data shows that bargained pay rises are flatlining at 2.7% a year in the private sector, rising at little more than half the 5.1% rate of headline consumer price inflation.

The mining and energy union and BHP Coal have agreed to assisted negotiations before the FWC in an attempt to break deadlocked bargaining talks.

The legislative changes five years ago to permit the FWC to overlook minor flaws in bargaining notices have failed to save an agreement for an indigenous health organisation.