Jetstar in winning support for a four-year deal from its ground staff at six major airports has outplayed the TWU after it ran a strong campaign against the deal and subjected the airline to rolling stoppages.
In a case confirming that emailing agreement and award documents and links to workers before they vote for a deal can meet pre-approval requirements, a senior FWC member has also outlined why he prefers to deal with non-party concerns early in the process.
An FWC bench led by Justice Iain Ross has shot back at a full Federal Court direction to properly answer a question posed by the president himself, maintaining it had already done so before highlighting the relevant passages.
The FWC has rejected a massage therapists' deal on the basis that extra wording in a preamble and at the end of the representational rights notice might have affected employees' interpretation and detracted from key messages.
A full Federal Court has delivered a pointed rebuke to FWC President Iain Ross, finding it could not consider a challenge to the decision of a Commission full bench he led because it was not, "with respect, any decision. . . at all".
The FWC has refused the RTBU's bid for a scope order so that it can negotiate separate agreements for Australian Rail Track Corporation's operational employees and their office-based colleagues, finding that even if it could ignore "sloppy" position descriptions in the application, a carve-out would not improve bargaining.
A tribunal has upended a large transport company's "unilateral" decision to change to zero its blood alcohol policy limit for contracted owner-drivers, finding a toolbox meeting and noticeboard postings did not meet the governing agreement's consultation requirements.
Bargained wage rises in the private sector dropped to 2.7% a year in the September quarter, according to newly-released Attorney-General's Department data that also shows some large retail employers are starting to tie increases to the FWC's annual review.
A group of Virgin Australia pilots suing the airline for about $2 million claim a commitment to provide command positions or equivalent pay by mid-2016 entitles them to captains' future salary increases under a new deal, regardless of whether they perform the role.
