A full Federal Court has quashed the approval of an allegedly substandard security services agreement and sent it back to the FWC, finding a full bench failed to properly formalise its ruling and to consider United Voice claims that it didn't pass the BOOT.
Unions representing police, nurses and ambulance officers have expressed strong reservations over the Turnbull Government's legislation to defend the role of volunteers in Victoria's Country Fire Authority, while Professor Andrew Stewart says parties might be able to readily sidestep the legislative restrictions via side deeds.
Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd has responded to reports that APS agencies "mismanaged" the bargaining process in the wake of the FWC's recent Uniline decision on bargaining notices.
The FWC has for the second time in 10 days agreed to suppress the personal details of employee signatories to an enterprise agreement, but this time has refused to keep their names confidential.
One Nation has flagged its support for the Senate inquiry into the controversial legislation aimed at restricting volunteer-related clauses in the enterprise agreement covering professional firefighters employed by Victoria's Country Fire Authority.
The FWC has agreed to suppress the identity of an employee representative who signed off on an enterprise agreement on the condition he would remain anonymous, because he feared victimisation in the workplace after the ETU resolved to oppose it.
The CPSU has until 4pm today to file material on whether the FWC has the power to make good faith bargaining orders against Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, as it prepares for a mass public service strike next week.
The FWC has granted the ASU's scope order application for three agreements after a "long and contested" disagreement over the issue between a Brisbane water company and unions.
The MUA is challenging three recent FWC approvals of agreements that had been negotiated directly between large offshore services companies and small numbers of employees, including one in which a Commission member expressed "serious concerns about the authenticity of the bargaining process".
The SDA says it will push harder to ensure that agreements contain sufficient safeguards to pass the better off overall test, in the wake of an FWC full bench's embarrassing rejection of the enterprise deal it negotiated for Coles supermarkets.
