The NSW IRC has awarded a senior consultant more than $25,000 in a s106 unfair contracts ruling, after finding that his employer had wrongly concluded that his refusal to return to work meant he had abandoned his employment.
Just a week ahead of the tabling in Parliament of the Cole Royal Commission's final report, Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott has released a consultants' report that says labour productivity in commercial construction is lagging well behind that in the Australian residential construction sector.
Resource sector employers need to start thinking about how they intend to manage the implications of a greying workforce, according to the Australian Mines and Metals Association.
Qantas and the FAAA's domestic and regional division have struck an in-principle deal that provides 2,400 flight attendants a 3%-a-year pay rise and a 6% lump sum payment, while unions are set to publish an open letter appealing to the airline to soften its hardline IR approach.
Victorian IR Minister, Rob Hulls, has attacked the decision by federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott to appeal against the AIRC's refusal to certify the non-union deal Grocon got up during its stand-off last year with the CFMEU.
A transferred NSW firefighter has won his claim for mortgage break-cost fees, in a state IRC decision that applies to all NSW public sector employees whose travel entitlements are covered by the general travel compensation award.
In the shadow of the looming war with Iraq, Australian employees of a US-based contractor at the remote Pine Gap joint defence facility are battling – so far unsuccessfully - to convince it that they are worth the same as the American citizens they are working beside.
The WA Government has won an appeal against a state IRC decision that overturned its sacking of a teacher, with the state Court of Appeal finding the disciplinary process followed was in line with statutory obligations.
Booth takes over as Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner; Former Sex Discrimination Commissioner to be Queensland Governor; and AIRC refuses time extension for year-late agreement certification application.
In a case that could have reverberations in Australia, a UK employment tribunal has upheld a claim by a public servant who worked in a back-office role that his employer's strict insistence that he wear a tie constituted sexual discrimination.