Maurice Blackburn Lawyers will today file a Federal Court test case for the TWU that alleges the Qantas decision to contract-out ground-handling duties performed by 2000 workers amounted to unlawful adverse action.
Virgin Australia will unilaterally seek support from its flight crew for a new enterprise deal, after failing to secure backing from its two pilot unions, while agreements for the remainder of the workforce have received the blessing of unions as the best they could achieve to get the relaunched airline back aloft.
IR Minister Christian Porter has flagged that he is looking to change key awards so that permanent part-time employees can agree to work extra hours at their usual rates of pay as required, leading to less reliance on casual work.
A majority of workers at the revamped Virgin Australia have agreed to a pay freeze for up to two years under new enterprise agreements negotiated between aviation unions and the airline's management.
The SDA has accused Aldi of rushing through replacement deals before current ones nominally expire in order to weaken workers' negotiating position and avoid protected action, after the FWC approved a new regional agreement barely a year into the existing instrument.
Support among workers for performing their duties from home, compressing their hours and job sharing has increased dramatically during COVID-19, according to university research commissioned by the FWC as it considers inserting a WFH clause in the clerical award.
The Federal Court has held that a deal struck outside of an enterprise agreement cannot alter the FWC's jurisdiction to arbitrate, and nor do workers need to re-start dispute processes when a new agreement is approved.
The FWC has found the MUA should have followed the NSW chief medical officer's advice to return to the docks after OHS representatives issued a "cease work" order in response to wharfies contracting COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic.
An FWC bench led by President Iain Ross "made no attempt" to analyse how model and agreement redundancy terms would operate in conjunction when assessing whether 21 seafarers had been fairly dismissed, a full Federal Court has found.
The FWC has rejected an "incompetent" bid by a company's employment services provider to vary an agreement that does not list it as the employer, questioning whether the deal was validly made in the first place.
