An FWC full bench has quashed a finding that BHP Coal should have kept paying or considered alternative duties for a mineworker while his driving licence was suspended, saying it would be tantamount to requiring an employer to excuse from duties but pay workers who turned up drunk.
On the second of 16 days of FWC hearings into an IEU equal pay claim for early childhood teachers, the union is blaming low wages for a skill shortage in the overwhelmingly female-dominated sector, while the ACTU says the case will test whether the Fair Work Act's equal pay principle can deliver.
The UFU's Victorian branch has defended using debt collectors to pursue unpaid dues from some members, who reportedly objected to paying an annual levy to fund the union's litigation costs.
The Registered Organisations Commission is seeking information from the HSU's Victorian No 1 branch, in response to what is alleged to be a protected disclosure from a whistleblower.
The FSU has asked the Federal Court to rule that a global currency exchange company is covered by the banking, finance and insurance award, claiming it shifted to the retail award after the recent reduction in penalty rates.
The ACTU's triennial Congress has endorsed a proposal for state and federal governments to enact industrial manslaughter laws, after maritime union leader Chris Cain told delegates that employers who recklessly kill workers should face $20 million fines and 20 years behind bars.
The AWU is seeking to change the rules governing the way it counts members after belatedly lodging membership figures of 69,786 as of December 2017 – a drop of 17,420, or 20%, from the figure reported a year earlier – following an external audit conducted at the urging of the ROC.
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union has slammed the Productivity Commission's omission of women in its draft report on the efficiency of the superannuation system, insisting it had "plenty of scope" to address a gender gap in which women retire with about half the savings of men.
