The NSW Business Chamber has formally applied for the Fair Work Commission to introduce new rules in modern awards covering more than 500,000 micro businesses that employ fewer than five workers.
The NSW Public Service Association says its axing of an assistant secretary position has boosted its war chest to fight the state government's electricity privatisation plans.
The ACTU will ask the Fair Work Commission for an extra 0.5% in award superannuation to compensate for the Abbott Government's freezing of Labor's scheduled increases to the guarantee levy, in its submission to this year's annual wage review to be lodged on Friday.
With legal avenues exhausted in their battles with the NSW government over public sector wages, superannuation and redundancy, unions have today lodged a complaint with the ILO and requested a formal investigation into the state's bargaining laws.
The ACTU is close to finalising alcohol and other drug guidelines that support oral testing rather than the urine sampling regime favoured by some employers.
The ACTU says unions will restart their campaign against James Hardie if it fails to top-up the compensation scheme for sufferers of asbestos-related diseases.
The impact on public sector bargaining of the implied constitutional limitation on Commonwealth interference with state governments is still not well enough understood, according to long-serving CPSU Victoria secretary Karen Batt.
The Heydon inquiry has heard evidence from five FWBC inspectors today about being abused and intimidated by CFMEU officials and delegates, prompting the royal commissioner to query the meaning of the word "dog".
