BHP Billiton is sounding out employees in its fast-growing in-house labour hire operation on "simple, safety net" agreements that include a guarantee to pay 5% more than the award to full-time and part-time employees.
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.
In holding that Qantas need not include prior service with related entities or casual employment when calculating flight attendants' redundancy entitlements, a senior FWC member has accused the FAAA of "cherry picking" to try to prove otherwise.
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.
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.
Working from home is here to stay and will be "more effective for all" if it is supported by formal policies, hours are "relatively fixed hours" and it is voluntary, according to one of two university studies commissioned by the FWC as it considers inserting a WFH clause in the clerks award.
The FWC has dismissed an employer's application to reduce a redundancy payment to nil, finding redeployment options unacceptable because of excessive travel time and reduced income.
IR Minister Christian Porter has confirmed he will not intervene in an ASX-listed company's bid to restructure in a way that relies on the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme to pay redundancy entitlements, saying many more will lose jobs without it.
The High Court will next month hear two special leave applications challenging findings that, in considering ordinary turnover of labour, employees' reasonable expectation of continuing work helps determine their entitlement to redundancy pay.
BHP has again failed to win approval for two hotly-contested in-house labour hire deals after a FWC full bench majority rejected further undertakings to address four "genuine agreement" concerns.