The NSW Government has imposed a 12-month wage freeze on its 408,000-strong public sector workforce, but has provided a job security guarantee for the same period.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison's headland speech on a new approach to IR change extended an olive branch to unions by dropping the "ensuring integrity' legislation, but also raised the prospect of further measures to crack down on unlawful behaviour on construction sites.
The ACTU will head into the Morrison Government's JobMaker policy discussions with the aim of reducing insecure employment and extending paid pandemic leave.
Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter will chair five working groups with the aim of producing a "practical reform" of the IR system to help grow jobs as the economy emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a significant decision examining how employers can lawfully assess "useful work" when standing down employees, the FWC has ruled a pandemic-affected cruise operator acted "upon proper principles" when transferring some of a superintendent's duties to others.
Thirteen major law firms have dropped their application for temporary changes to the Legal Services Award in response to the coronavirus, a month after the ASU demanded they prove the changes were necessary.
Reduction in JobKeeper recipients won't lift unemployment, says Treasury; Men more likely to seek early super release; Court reserves on COVID-19 regulation challenge; and NRL refs sideline FWC case.
The FWC has found it unreasonable of Qantas to only pay the equivalent of two fortnightly JobKeeper payments to a monthly paid manager who worked for part of the period, in a decision the ASU wants applied to the rest of its workforce.
The CFMMEU's court challenge to the COVID-19 reduction in notice periods for agreement changes opened this morning, with the union opposing IR Minister Christian Porter's bid to admit evidence on 30 recent variation applications, countering that he could deal with it by issuing a media release.
The Federal Court has issued orders that the administrators of Virgin Australia will not be personally liable for any debts to the Commonwealth incurred through the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme.