A new ACCC class exemption for small businesses wanting to collectively bargain is a "big step forward" for gig economy workers and others classified as independent contractors, but it comes with significant limitations, according to IR academics.
In a decision traversing the circumstances in which the FWC will make findings about the legal status of Fair Work regulations, a full bench has rejected a bid to quash a coronavirus-driven agreement variation on the basis that recently-repealed shorter access provisions were invalid.
The CFMMEU construction and general division's NSW branch has warned sub-contractors that have signed its new pattern agreement they face being reported to the ABCC unless they switch to a nine-day fortnight from December 1.
The FWC has varied a construction supply company's newly-approved deal after the ABCC objected to its consultation clause, maintaining it was inconsistent with the building code's freedom of association requirements.
The Victorian branch of the CFMMEU's construction and general division is looking to put a new enterprise agreement to a vote by individual builders and sub-contractors after finally winning ABCC approval for an in-principle deal.
A senior FWC member exceeded her powers when, in considering a majority support determination application, she ordered the AEC to ballot employees at the Commission's expense, a full bench has found.
An FWC full bench has overturned the approval of a labour hire deal, finding a "disjunction" between its scope and the roles performed by workers meant it should not have been found genuinely agreed.
Ignoring a union's frequent letters challenging whether it could make senior engineering appointments on a temporary rather than permanent basis gave Jetstar no standing to claim a deal's dispute resolution process had not been correctly followed, the FWC has ruled.
The FWC has in approving an agreement voted up by two of three workers accepted the employer's claim that union opposition was premised on a "preposterous" conspiracy theory that it manipulated the process by making two CEPU members redundant during negotiations.
