Queensland employers are urging the State and Federal governments to take responsibility for millions of dollars in backpay claims that could be pursued by apprentices after an FWC full bench held that an old State award that continued to dictate their pay was superseded three years ago.
The AMMA has formally asked Employment Minister Michaelia Cash to restore "common sense" to agreement-making after an FWC full bench accepted the MUA's argument that defects in bargaining notices meant it had to quash the approval of two non-union deals.
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.
The FWC has approved an agreement for a franchisee of fast food chain Oporto, after it gave undertakings to lift its base rates of pay by up to a "remarkable" 26%, leaving employees more than 20% better off than under the award.
It would have been preferable for an FWC member to have provided brief reasons for refusing to hear a non-party union's arguments against approval of an enterprise agreement, and she should have acceded to its request for access to the employer's statutory declarations, a full bench has found.
The CFMEU expects to lodge an appeal early next week against yesterday's FWC decision to terminate the agreement for AGL Loy Yang's power station and coal mine because of the "intractable" bargaining dispute between the parties.
The FWC has approved an enterprise agreement despite its "grave reservations" about the appropriateness of the company's ER manager obtaining a list of employees who abstained from the ballot for the deal and questioning them about their vote.
The FWC has chastised an employer for distributing a "partisan" majority support ballot notice that discourages employees from voting to start bargaining.
Anglo Coal is facing a seven-figure backpayment, after the High Court refused to grant it special leave to appeal a finding that a subsidiary breached its enterprise agreement by failing to pay employees correctly when they cashed-out personal/carer's leave.
