Agreements and bargaining page 46 of 176

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has struck a new enterprise agreement that provides one-off bonuses of 12%, as it moves away from performance-based rewards and seeks to retain employees in the highly-competitive financial services sector.

Striking NSW paramedics and hospital workers will on Thursday add to mounting pressure on the Perrottet Government to ditch its 2.5% cap on public sector pay rises, deliver a significant catch-up increase, update awards and open up productivity-based bargaining.

The FWC has rejected a bus company’s objection to the TWU choosing a ballot agent with no experience in the transport industry, finding that the Commission cannot dictate the use of one over another.

A full Federal Court has upheld findings that Qantas and Jetstar had no reasonable choice but to stand down hundreds of engineers due to coronavirus-driven events outside their control, but one member of the bench has warned that an incorrect interpretation of "stoppage of work" has been allowed to stand.

In a decision closely examining the FWC's powers to make scope orders, a full bench majority has found that an employer's failure to spell out classifications for a proposed agreement rendered the process "defective".

Unions must adopt inventive strategies such as those used by Hospo Voice and RAFFWU to connect with and recruit workers, alongside the organising model used for the past 20 years, but legislative change is also necessary to enable multi-employer bargaining and allow industry-wide or supply-chain based protected action in support of it, according to a leading IR academic.

Workers employed by a major West Australian gold miner have overwhelmingly endorsed a new four-year enterprise deal despite the AWU opposing it because it fails to guarantee annual pay increases.

The AMWU has accused the Perth-based newspaper group controlled by billionaire Kerry Stokes of engaging in a "war of attrition" against its printers through a long-running lockout during stalled enterprise bargaining.

In a decision the RTBU expects to have "widespread ramifications" for employers and employees alike, potentially even disrupting sleep, a FWC full bench has held an unread text message changing an impending shift will satisfy Pacific National's notice requirements.

The Federal Court has applied the "precautionary principle" in accepting the FWO's view on the process for calculating underpayments for 19,000 salaried Woolworths employees, while it has also indicated that jointly managing the matter with a similar Coles case "would be useful".