The FWC has granted an extension for the Albanese Government, unions and employers involved in the aged care work value case to respond to 50 questions posed late last year, such as whether they agree with a provisional view not to realign rates in a way that would hand the sector's registered nurses a 35% pay increase and whether they should be moved into the aged care award.
The CFMMEU's mining energy division looks likely to be able to proceed with its plans to demerge from the broader union, after the parties reached a peace deal.
Target has paid workers a $400 lump sum bonus after they voted up a proposed four-year deal to replace its 2012 "zombie" agreement, with conditions, wages and pay rises to be tightly pinned to the retail award.
The CPSU is pushing the Albanese Government to bring forward to the start of next year its promised return to centralised bargaining for common terms and conditions in the Australian Public Sector.
The Albanese Government says it is not feasible to fund the FWC's interim increase for aged care workers before July next year and wants to hold back a third of the 15% boost until mid-2024, but an "incredulous" HSU says the sector expects the increase to apply immediately on approval.
The FWC has ordered a worker's reinstatement and criticised his employer for its "severely flawed" dismissal process after it used a traffic violation as a "golden opportunity" to dismiss him for riling management by engaging in "covert" and "unlawful" industrial action.
The increasing "wage premium" for union members underlines the importance of reforms such as multi-employer bargaining and going even further to prevent the disparity growing wider, according to a leading IR academic, who counterintuitively says the divergence is not a good development for employee organisations.
Union density has dropped significantly from 14.3% to 12.5% over the past two years and almost 10 percentage points a decade for the past 30 years, according to ABS data released today.
The HSU and the ANMF say the Fair Work Act's new secure work and gender equality objectives will bolster and simplify their work value case on behalf of aged care workers, proposing that Federal Government submissions should address the changes.
As ROC staff await their transfer to the FWC, the watchdog has found that a former AEU ACT branch secretary did not improperly use his position, while it is also pursuing the AWU and a CFMMEU mining and energy division Queensland district leader in the Federal Court.