A full bench has vacated tomorrow's hearing of a Virgin subsidiary's bid for an intractable bargaining declaration after earlier refusing to adjourn the test case while the airline puts its latest offer to WA engineers for a vote, with the ALAEA saying it will immediately increase their pay by 13.5%.
The IEU's WA branch says it has re-lodged an application for a single interest multi-employer bargaining authorisation to compel Catholic school employers to negotiate on behalf of thousands of general and education support workers.
The FSU is urging members at NAB to accept a revised "benchmark" agreement offer that will lift their pay by as much as 17.5% and boost the ability to work from home, but the union says the improvements are not enough for it to call off Federal Court action over excessive hours.
A FWC full bench has extended a mango farm's zombie agreement for one more picking season to fulfil the seasonal worker program's requirement that a single industrial instrument apply for the duration of employment, while it has found the question of whether employees are better off overall is not an "express consideration".
The FWC has given coal miner Peabody until Thursday to respond to its suggestion that it adopt "somewhat more neutrally worded" clauses in a proposed agreement that says workers are "required" to work on public holidays.
A FWC full bench has spelled out that it will not extend the term of zombie Australian Workplace Agreements due to be axed on December 7 just because it is sought by both the employer and workers.
Virgin's groundbreaking bid for an intractable bargaining declaration is "the quintessential bargaining scenario which the Parliament would have had in mind when enacting the IBD regime", it claims, while the FWC has allowed the ACTU to intervene in the case.
In a decision pointing to the circumstances under which zombie deals can survive beyond December's drop-dead date, a four-member FWC bench has extended a 2004 agreement by almost 18 months after accepting it provides "significantly" better pay than the award and that negotiations have already begun for a replacement deal.
The FWC decided this week to terminate rather than suspend industrial action at the Australian Rail Track Authority, because the parties' "entrenched" positions made it "unlikely any significant progress would be made" if it ordered a pause, according to newly-released reasons.
