The RTBU and ASU will today test whether employers can make deals directly with their employees after the termination of protected action to bypass the subsequent 21 days of negotiations and avoid the ensuing arbitration of an agreement.
Union members employed by Chevron have endorsed draft enterprise agreements covering three major gas projects and agreed to suspend planned industrial action due to resume tomorrow.
Apple has won approval of a new agreement to replace a 2014 deal targeted for termination by RAFFWU, after a full bench rejected the unregistered union's claims that its part-time provisions create a "flexi-insecure" arrangement akin to casual employment.
A FWC full bench has confirmed that it can only approve enterprise agreements that include rates of pay, because their absence prevents it determining whether the deal passes the BOOT.
A logistics company has failed to win approval for a greenfields deal as it only notified the MUA's WA branch despite provisions for future national expansion, and it offers "substantially inferior" pay and conditions.
The FWC will probe potential "wider-scale abuse" of agreement-making under the Fair Work Act after quashing the approval of a Chevron contractor's labour hire deal made with six "employees" in a sham process "entirely lacking in authenticity and moral authority".
A major meat processor that told workers a proposed deal would boost their pay while reducing the rates for future recruits has failed to win approval after the FWC found some fresh starters could in fact earn far more while others would experience a "repugnant" reduction, while the umpire also suggested if the new genuine agreement principles applied, it might not comply.
The FWC has declined to approve an agreement made by a group of workers from a related company ahead of them being transferred across to the entity that was to be covered by the deal, rejecting the employer's contention that it was a minor procedural or technical error.
BHP has abandoned its latest pursuit of an agreement for maintenance workers at its in-house labour hire arm after conceding it failed to properly explain how a proposed "regional hub model" would operate.