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.
ABC employees' almost three-quarters majority rejection of a deal unilaterally offered by the public broadcaster edges them closer to ending a "business model of overwork, underpay and inequality", according to the MEAA, which together with the CPSU is seeking almost twice the organisation's 9.5% proposal.
The FWC has given the CFMMEU's legal team access to the mining and energy division's membership roll ahead of a hearing into its demerger bid, after the amalgamated union argued it owns the division's records and rejected suggestions its in-house lawyers might misuse the information.
A court has fined a major meat processing company $30,000 for unlawfully hindering a union official's entry by requiring him to surrender his phone, after finding its no-phones "safety" policy did not apply to other types of visitors.
More than 1,000 domestic cabin crew at Qantas have authorised protected action including 24-hour strikes and overtime bans in the lead-up to the busy pre-Christmas travel period, as their union resists the airline's push for longer rostered hours and to hold annual pay rises to 3% as inflation soars.
A leading gender and IR expert says providing 12 paid menstruation and menopause leave days per year would be a "very positive start", as unions and Maurice Blackburn prepare a campaign likely to push for at least this level of entitlement via legislative reforms and agreements.
