Recent AIRC decisions have approved union applications for ballots for industrial action despite employer objections, including to the appointment of ballot agents other than the AEC, but postal votes have been ordered in two cases – either to maximise the franchise, or maintain secrecy requirements.
A full bench of the NSW Industrial Court has reserved its decision on a crucial case that will test whether state industrial tribunals have the power under Work Choices to make awards for matters excluded from federal coverage, such as long service leave.
The NSW IRC's inquiry into the availability of work at Tristar will proceed to hearings, after it yesterday rejected the company's contention that Work Choices stymied it.
The CPSU says the OWS is delaying offering a non-union collective agreement to around 100 of its employees because they would vote against it, as most of them want a union agreement instead.
The UK's Blair Government has accepted its’ Low Pay Commission’s recommendation to increase the UK minimum wage by 3.2% this year, following an unusual fall in employment among low-paid workers.
A record number of women in the world are working, but low pay, poor job opportunities and gender inequalities have resulted in stagnant poverty rates, according to an ILO report launched on International Women’s Day.
Australia's manufacturing productivity growth is likely to continue to lag behind that of the US, while five other industries that are also currently out-performed - retail, wholesale, communications, utilities and finance - have the potential to close their productivity gaps, according to a Productivity Commission staff working paper.
The NSW IRC has started to develop principles for determining the obligations of federal system employers of children under the state’s new child labour laws.
The HREOC has called on the Howard Government to double to 20 days the personal/carers leave in the AFPCS, to reinstate "right to request" provisions and to require the OEA to report annually on AWA wages and conditions, but ACCI has dismissed the carers leave proposal as "an ambit claim not grounded in reality".
Gender equity in Australia - including in the workplace - has been on the decline over the last decade, despite earlier gains that made the country a world leader in women's rights, according to a new academic study.
