Agreements and bargaining page 117 of 175

Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie today introduced a private members' bill to prevent the Fair Work Commission from agreeing to employer requests to terminate expired enterprise agreements that leave workers worse off.

The FWC looks set to reduce by a week its hearings into an application by Coles nightfill worker Penny Vickers to terminate the 2011 agreement, after warning that granting further extensions could render her case moot if the retailer gets a new agreement approved.

Employers should be unable to terminate enterprise agreements that leave workers worse off, according to a Senate inquiry considering so-called 'corporate avoidance' of the Fair Work Act.

Catholic school employers have failed to convince the FWC to refer to a full bench its challenge to the right of NSW and ACT teachers to take protected action on the basis their dioceses are not "single interest employers" as required by the Fair Work Act.

The Turnbull Government has blasted a major builder that negotiated a precedent-setting enterprise agreement with the CFMEU as being "highly unrepresentative" of the construction industry, describing the deal as an act of "commercial self-harm".

A group of major builders is well advanced in negotiations with the CFMEU on variations to enterprise agreements to enable them to comply with the Turnbull Government's national construction code.

Unilever has applied to terminate an enterprise agreement for a Streets ice cream plant in Sydney, where bargaining is deadlocked despite more than a year of interest-based bargaining before the Fair Work Commission.

Wesfarmers has avoided having chief executive Richard Goyder put on the witness stand ahead of the FWC later this year hearing Penny Vickers' bid to terminate its 2011 supermarkets agreement, after a full bench accepted that the parent company had no role in approving the retailer's 2014 enterprise deal.

The SDA and rival Retail and Fast Food Workers Union have within a month of each other filed bids to terminate Domino's Pizza agreements, while the fast food chain says it has been increasing employees' pay via "discretionary entitlements" and expects to soon have a BOOT-compliant enterprise deal.

In a landmark ruling, an FWC full bench has stopped the Federal Government relying on privileged documents such as Budget papers to argue for its 2% public sector wages cap in a workplace determination.