The FWC has given Arnott's biscuits the go-ahead to introduce urine testing of all employees for drug and alcohol use, while the food giant has agreed to trial a union proposal for workers to take immediate leave without pay if they record a positive from oral or breathalyser self-tests before a shift.
The Fair Work Commission has reserved its decision on whether Federal Workplace Minister Craig Laundy can intervene in the approval of a new enterprise agreement covering the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade, an attempt criticised by the UFU as an "unprecedented hijack" of the process.
Virgin Australia can use pilots' entire final pay to meet increasing costs of training new recruits if they leave within three years, under a domestic pilots' agreement that the FWC has approved despite finding it "likely" that the clause is not a permitted deduction.
A full Federal Court has today dismissed an attempt to overturn the Fair Work Commission's rejection of a new enterprise agreement for aviation ground-handling company Aerocare.
In a significant decision on the FWC's power to deal with clashes between agreements and state laws, a tribunal member has found that jurisdiction was established by a combination of health and safety considerations and the absence of legislative reference to exclusive arbitrators.
In a significant addition to the jurisprudence around "arrangements" between transferring businesses, the FWC has rejected union arguments that the urgent use of an old employer's pathology equipment after a midnight handover should lead to continuing employees being retained on their existing, more generous enterprise agreement.
An FWC full bench has reserved its decision in a case that looms as a significant test of what constitutes a new activity for the purposes of making a greenfields agreement.
The IEU is recommending NSW and ACT Catholic school teachers and support workers vote "yes" to a revised deal breaking an extended deadlock over guaranteed access to FWC arbitration, while employers have committed to making a second back-payment to the start of the year.
In a development that might fuel debate over the links between union power and wage rises, substantially above-average pay increases secured in the heavily-unionised construction sector have pushed bargained private sector wage rises off their recent historic low.
The Fair Work Commission acceded to a bid by mining giants to terminate a coal loading agreement after concluding that a system of "self-directed" work teams that constrains management prerogative "needs to go".
