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The ALP and CPSU say the Federal Government is failing to live up to its own rhetoric on choice of agreement, after a Treasury body offered AWAs to its employees, despite almost 90% of them petitioning for a collective deal.

Low-paid workers in the UK will later this year get a 6% pay rise, well above inflation and average weekly earnings growth, after the Blair Government accepted a recommendation by the pay-setting body on which the Fair Pay Commission was modelled. And in an echo of one of the Work Choices debates, the UK body has refused to accept that employers should be able to count non-cash benefits as part of the minimum wage.

A labour hire employee who refused to move from a long-term placement to another host employer has lost an unfair dismissal claim, but the NSW IRC hasn't ruled out the possibility that such an employee could have an implied term in their employment contract giving them a right to stay with the host.

While Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews today rejected suggestions that low-wage employees would be disadvantaged by regulations allowing minimum wage averaging, practitioners also raised concerns that salary sacrificing for the low-paid could be abused.

Unions are likely to find ways to circumvent the new ban on providing unfair dismissal remedies in agreements, while the results of next year's NSW election could be the key to whether a truly national IR system can get up, Flinders University Professor of Law Andrew Stewart told a Sydney conference today. He also explained how next week's re-numbering of the Workplace Relations Act would work.

News Ltd and its contractor Group 4 Securitas have been ordered to pay a total of $1.9 million in damages to a former security guard subject to extreme bullying and intimidation by his supervisor.

SA employers have 27 days to apply for exemption to minimum wage; Esso Bass Strait agreements confirm 7-day rosters; Unions plan mass rally against Work Choices on June 28; AMA steps up pressure over Work Choices medical certificates; Women lift union density in the UK; and UK discrimination laws remove redundancy age limit.

Security guards in Victoria will receive a 3.2% work value increase, while crowd controllers' work value has grown to such an extent that they will get a 6.5% rise, following an AIRC ruling.

AMA says Work Choices medical certificate provisions are flawed; Bird flu could see 60% of workforce absent for up to four weeks: Mercer report; and ACTU calls for inquiry into skilled visa program.

The Howard Government's $83m funding over three years to encourage workplace change in higher education won't focus on key items on the Government's IR agenda - such as fostering direct relationships with employees - until the second and third years of the program.