GM Holden is encouraging workers at its Elizabeth assembly plant in Adelaide to register their interest in taking an uncapped redundancy payout of 3.5 weeks pay for each year of service as it seeks to cut up to 270 jobs by the end of next month.
The NSW Business Chamber has formally applied for the Fair Work Commission to introduce new rules in modern awards covering more than 500,000 micro businesses that employ fewer than five workers.
A modern award is set to be stripped of a discriminatory clause that has prevented 13 older employees accessing between 40 and 60 weeks redundancy pay over the past 18 months.
Australia could consider adopting a Kiwi-style statutory good faith obligation after the High Court's finding that there is no implied duty of mutual trust and confidence in employment contracts, according to a senior law academic.
A Fair Work Commission full bench has rejected Glencore Xstrata's challenge to orders requiring the company to provide the tribunal with documents relating to its staffing decisions last year at its Collinsville open cut coal mine.
The former Labor Government's changes to the modern award objective have made it impossible for 24/7 industries such as hospitality to successfully prosecute cases to abolish penalty rates and should be scrapped, according to the peak body for restaurant employers.
The Office of the Australian Small Business Commissioner is pushing for the full adult wage to be paid from the age of 18, questioning the rationale behind the IR system "deeming adulthood to commence at 21".
The ACTU will ask the Fair Work Commission for an extra 0.5% in award superannuation to compensate for the Abbott Government's freezing of Labor's scheduled increases to the guarantee levy, in its submission to this year's annual wage review to be lodged on Friday.
A chief executive has been awarded more than $3m after a court found that his employer's redundancy policy was incorporated into his contract of employment, but his off-sider will take home nothing after failing to prove that the policy became part of his contract as part of a "course of dealings".
Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party Senator Ricky Muir has supported penalty rates and touched on his former role as a CFMEU shop steward in his first speech to federal parliament, while Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has used the chamber to attack FWBC head Nigel Hadgkiss's employment history.