Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has flagged that Labor will seek to protect workers' take-home pay if the Fair Work Commission decides to reduce weekend penalty rates in its award review ruling.
Rio Tinto has agreed to sell its NSW coal interests – including the Coal & Allied operations that were at the centre of the late 1990s battle of the IR "titans" – to Chinese interests for $3.2 billion ($US2.45 billion).
The FWC has stayed the termination of the enterprise agreement for the Loy Yang power station and coal mine, conditional on CFMEU members refraining from taking any further industrial action until the appeal is decided.
A Federal Court judge has found it "may well be correct" that former Tasmanian union leaders Kevin Harkins and Nicole Wells – now a Tasmanian Industrial Commission member – received redundancy payouts in 2008 to which they were not entitled.
A court has refused to summarily dismiss a general protections claim instigated by two former CFMEU construction and general division NSW branch organisers who maintain they were driven out of their jobs for whistleblowing.
A lie told by a veteran Qantas flight attendant sacked for stealing alcohol has again proven his undoing, with an FWC full bench yesterday quashing an unfair dismissal ruling that put him in line for more than $33,000 in compensation.
The FWC has upheld a disability support association's dismissal of a carer whose psychological injuries meant she could not fulfil the inherent requirements of her job, but has criticised the "regrettable" response by the employer's HR department to her bullying allegations.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of an employee for serious misconduct that included his "burnout" outside his workplace and being caught on a security camera making rude gestures.
Tensions in the senior ranks of the FWC have again entered the public domain with the resignation of Vice President Graeme Watson, effective from the end of next month.
