CPI up 3% annually, after 0.9% quarterly rise; Industrial action appeal might go straight to High Court; AIRC orders MUA to halt industrial action on Woodside north west shelf project; New pre-employment psych test claimed to predict dishonest behaviour; and ABCC seminars to explain how to comply with the national construction code.
Amber Oswald - the 16-year-old Sydney juice bar worker who claimed her $99-a-week pay was cut to $59 under a proposed Work Choices AWA - will continue to have her pay and conditions determined by a "pre-reform" s170LK agreement that provided for penalty rates and an above-award rate of pay, following an undertaking given to the AIRC today.
In one of the first big retail deals the SDA has struck under Work Choices, David Jones will pay its 10,000 employees a 6.1% pay rise over two years, lift severance pay entitlements and allow workers to take up to three sick days a year without certification.
The TWU's federal office has won a stay against the controversial first order against industrial action under Work Choices, but the order still applies against the union's NSW branch.
The WA IRC has today cancelled CFMEU WA construction division assistant secretary Joe McDonald's State entry permit, after hearing of his assault on two BGC Construction employees and his "recidivist' behaviour.
The transport unions have written to Toll Holdings seeking assurances that their members won't be disadvantage by the company's successful $6.3 billion Easter takeover of Patrick Corporation.
ALP set to return minimum wage fixing to AIRC; Worker sacked for smirking, says AMWU; Beazley says he'll abolish foreign apprenticeship visas; and World's first eight-hour day marked in Melbourne.
The Australian manufacturing sector will generate a quarter of its economic activity offshore by 2008, which, when combined with other pressures such as competition from low-cost countries, could lead to job losses totalling 30,000 over the next 12 months alone, according to the AiG.
Major building owners, managers and cleaning contractors will be pressured to adopt a union code of principles as part of an international campaign for cleaners' wages and conditions launched by the LHMU today.
