Pay and remuneration page 72 of 75

The FSU will push to flow on changes in performance pay agreed with the National Australia Bank into upcoming bargaining grounds at the other three big banks.

A positive economic outlook and sustained labour productivity improvement are key factors in yesterday's Fair Work Commission's decision to award a 3% increase to award rates of pay, with the minimum wage panel again advising employer groups that they need to introduce more rigour to their surveys if they are to have any influence on the tribunal's deliberations.

The Fair Work Commission has this afternoon awarded the nation's award-reliant workers a 3% increase, lifting the national minimum wage by $18.70, in this year's annual wage review ruling.

The ACTU's bid to remove former senior public servant Tony Cole from this year's annual wage review has failed, after he told the peak body in a consultation hearing this morning that he would not step down because he was not a party to the Audit Commission's recommendation to reduce the minimum wage.

The ACTU's request for a member of the Fair Work Commission's minimum wage review panel to stand aside is expected to come to a head at a hearing in Melbourne tomorrow.

Tugboat workers in Port Hedland, the outlet for much of Australia's iron ore exports, have endorsed legally protected industrial action in pursuit of improved pay and conditions in a new agreement.

The number of casual workers in Australia has climbed past the 2.2 million mark but the proportion of the workforce that is casual has steadied and another form of non-standard employment - independent contracting - has fallen over the last five years, according to the latest ABS data.

The Fair Work Commission has pushed the federal and state governments to show their hands in this year's wage review, asking them what dollar or percentage increase would constitute a "cautious" or "balanced" approach.

The ACTU has asked that a member of the minimum wage review panel stand aside on the grounds of "apprehended bias" after he sat on the Abbott Government's Commission of Audit, which recommended a radical reduction in the pay safety net. Meanwhile, retail super funds have begun legal action against the FWC.

The NSW Government has had a victory in its long-running battle to include compulsory superannuation increases within the public sector 2.5% wage cap, after the State's Court of Appeal quashed last year's IRC ruling that the wages cap only applied to Commission-awarded increases.