The ALAEA says a one-minute strike by Qantas licensed engineers played a crucial role in securing a proposed deal boosting job security as the Flying Kangaroo introduces new aircraft and enables Sydney LAMEs to radically change their roster to achieve "lifestyle benefits", while the airline has today confirmed it cut labour costs by about $570 million under its COVID-19 "recovery plan".
A judge irked by a multinational company's attempt to cast its underpaying subsidiary's award breaches as the court's "alternate interpretation" has imposed a near-maximum fine.
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has today argued for "responsible and sustainable" wage increases to ease cost of living pressures, as he emerged from an address to the ACTU's national executive in Melbourne.
Wages in private sector agreements approved in the September quarter remained stuck at 2.9% a year, defying labour shortages and inflationary pressure, according to DEWR data.
Target has paid workers a $400 lump sum bonus after they voted up a proposed four-year deal to replace its 2012 "zombie" agreement, with conditions, wages and pay rises to be tightly pinned to the retail award.
Enterprise agreements filed with the FWC in the fortnight to November 18 paid average annualised wage increases of 3.4%, substantially outpacing the 2.8% rises in DEWR's data for June quarter agreements but well below consumer price inflation of about 7%.
ABC employees' almost three-quarters majority rejection of a deal unilaterally offered by the public broadcaster edges them closer to ending a "business model of overwork, underpay and inequality", according to the MEAA, which together with the CPSU is seeking almost twice the organisation's 9.5% proposal.
As inflation continues to rise at about 7%, annual wage increases have dropped to just 2.2% in the latest fortnightly batch of "real-time" enterprise deals analysed by the FWC, due to health and welfare agreements paying an average of 2.1% a year.
More than 1,000 domestic cabin crew at Qantas have authorised protected action including 24-hour strikes and overtime bans in the lead-up to the busy pre-Christmas travel period, as their union resists the airline's push for longer rostered hours and to hold annual pay rises to 3% as inflation soars.
In a significant decision on the nature of work, the FWC has found that the nursing home at the centre of one of Queensland's deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks should have paid employees for the time spent taking rapid antigen tests before the start of their shifts.
