Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced the government will restore $17m of entitlements to Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, but warned it will not back down on its 1.5% pay deal. The Government had cut five entitlements as part of the recent ADF pay deal, including extra recreation leave, Christmas leave, driving and food allowances ( WF...
Abbott backs down on ADF entitlements but not pay
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FW Act done more for deal-making than bargaining: academic
Unions have failed to take advantage of Fair Work Act (FW Act) provisions to give them control of collective bargaining, so the Act increasingly facilitates agreement-making driven by employers in which employees have little input, according to a labour law academic. RMIT's Professor Anthony Forsyth made the comments in a lecture on statutory regul...
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Manager fired for ‘racking up' with junior clerk
A used-car sales manager was validly dismissed for offering and snorting a substance said to be cocaine at the workplace with a junior employee, the Fair Work Commission has held. That was despite no medical evidence on what the substance actually was. Stewart Automotive Group (SAG) sales manager Emmanuel Young denied offering or using drugs at the...
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Editorial Team
Editor: David Marin-Guzman, (02) 8587 7682, david.marin-guzman@thomsonreuters.com . Chief Journalist: Paul Karp. Managing Editor: Peter Schwab. Twitter: @WorkforceTR
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Could corporate value statements be subject to consumer law?
An employment lawyer has suggested workers may be able to use misleading and deceptive conduct protections in Australian consumer law (ACL) to hold employers to account for their corporate value statements. In a paper delivered to the Australian Labour Law Association conference last month, Swaab Attorneys partner Warwick Ryan questioned whether co...
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‘Ice' drug claims in the Pilbara result in unfair dismissals
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has ordered compensation for two workers dismissed because a fellow employee claimed they bullied him to withdraw cash with a company credit card to buy methamphetamines for them. The cmn found the dismissals unfair because the fellow employee's refusal to give oral evidence meant his claims were untested. Road train ...
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Editorial Team
Editor: David Marin-Guzman, (02) 8587 7682, david.marin-guzman@thomsonreuters.com . Chief Journalist: Paul Karp. Managing Editor: Peter Schwab. Twitter: @WorkforceTR
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New deal ends NUW Tingalpa sit in
Hundreds of workers at Smiths Snackfood in Tingalpa, Queensland have ended a fivethree-day sit- in after acceptingand accepted an increased pay offer from the company plus job security and casual conversion clauses. In negotiations for a new enterprise agreement (EA), the National Union of Workers (NUW) demanded Smiths pay casual and labour hire em...
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Not all shiftworkers entitled to five-week leave: judge
In the first court decision on the Fair Work Act's five-week annual leave entitlement for shiftworkers, a Federal Circuit Court judge has held employers are free to classify shiftworkers in a way that means they are not entitled to the National Employment Standards benefit. The FW Act's s 87 (1)(b)(ii) grants an extra week of annual leave to employ...
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Probation sacking adverse action claim out of time
The Federal Circuit Court (FCC) has refused to grant an extension of time to a worker sacked at the end of his probationary period who claimed his dismissal was adverse action in response to his bullying complaints. However, the court upheld the worker's proposition that complaining about the bullying of a co-worker could be the exercise of a workp...
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Full bench to consider whether ‘ridiculous' bargaining claims in bad faith
A Fair Work Commission (FWC) full bench is set to rule on whether a mining employer - openly opposed to an enterprise agreement (EA) - was bargaining in good faith when it proposed to cut employee salaries by 66% or $100k if they went on an EA (WF 12/09) . Peabody Energy Pty Ltd had told Association of Professional Engineers Scientists Managers Aus...
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CFMEU wins High Court reprieve in Boral contempt proceedings
The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) has won a reprieve further delaying its criminal contempt trial in the Boral dispute until next year, after the High Court granted a stay allowing the union to seek special leave to appeal a discovery order. On October 24, the Victoria Supreme Court of Appeal rejected the CFMEU's appeal ( WF 28/...
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Editorial Team
Editor: David Marin-Guzman, (02) 8587 7682, david.marin-guzman@thomsonreuters.com . Chief Journalist: Paul Karp. Managing Editor: Peter Schwab. Twitter: @WorkforceTR
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Labour productivity close to 2%
Labour productivity has continued to grow towards the end of the year, with a 1.9% trend increase in the 12 months to September. The National Accounts figures released today reveal gross value added per hour worked in the market sector (a measure of productivity) increased by 0.2% on a trend basis in the Sept quarter, lower than the past four quart...
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Veterans' Affairs staff approves industrial action
Industrial action in the public sector has ramped up with announcement of action at the Department of Human Services (DHS) next week and a second department overwhelmingly approving a ballot for action. Yesterday (December 2) some 95% of Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members at the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) approved action in...
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Editorial Team
Editor: David Marin-Guzman, (02) 8587 7682, david.marin-guzman@thomsonreuters.com . Chief Journalist: Paul Karp. Journalist: Steve Andrew. Managing Editor: Peter Schwab. Twitter: @WorkforceTR
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Bench clarifies EA interpretation
A Fair Work Commission (FWC) full bench has for the first time clarified that the Act Interpretation Act (AI Act) does not apply to interpreting enterprise agreements (EAs), because they are “made” by employers and workers, not by the cmn. The ruling came in a decision rejecting an Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU) appe...
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Test case on leave entitlements while on w/comp heads to Fed Court
Anglican Care has appealed a precedent decision that ruled NSW workers could accrue leave entitlements while receiving workers' compensation (WF 21/11) . The decision is understood to have ramifications for other state jurisdictions where the right to accrue such entitlements is uncertain following the introduction of the Fair Work Act's s130 . Sec...
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Pilbara mining employers facilitate police drug swoop
Western Australia Police and mining employers are partnering in an anti-drug operation, starting this week with Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) in the Pilbara. On Tuesday (December 2) WA Police began the first phase of the operation, which included police with sniffer dogs flying into FMG's worksite to check workers arriving by plane. The operation ta...
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Andrews announces Cabinet
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced his new Cabinet, sworn in today (December 4). Andrews announced Natalie Hutchins is industrial relations minister, continuing on from her shadow portfolio. Hutchins will also be responsible for local government and Aboriginal affairs. She was an Australian Workers Union organiser. Jacinta Allan is mini...
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