NSW unions look likely to accept a State Government offer of a $1.50 an hour allowance to compensate 8,000 public sector workers whose workload will increase during the Sydney Olympics.
One of Australia's most influential employer organisations, the Business Council of Australia, wants the IRC to have a greater role in mediating bargaining disputes - a position that puts it in sharp contrast with the Government's desire to introduce competitive private mediation.
A full bench of the IRC has stepped into the aged care debate, awarding private aged care nurses in the Northern Territory a substantial pay increase, but acknowledging their employers will have difficulty providing it because of precarious funding arrangements.
The Democrats have confirmed that the Government's pattern bargaining Bill as it stands is unlikely to get their support in the Senate committee report being handed down today, with IR spokesperson Senator Andrew Murray yesterday issuing a media release expressing concern with the legislation's wide implications.
The unionised half of BHP's Pilbara iron ore workforce will go out for 24 hours on Wednesday June 7 after the company rejected a collective agreement proposal from unions that largely mirrors the terms of the company's staff contracts.
Just when super-unions have gone out of fashion, the two big transport organisations, the Transport Workers Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union, have revealed plans to merge into what would be one of Australia's most powerful and strategically-placed unions.
The South Australian construction sector continues to be hit by union bans five months after bargaining began in the state, and there appears to be no hope of an industry-wide deal.
A new deal covering Westpac's call centre in Launceston, Tasmania, allows the business to become a 24-hour/seven-day operation, with employees paid penalties based on an hours grid.
AMWU national organiser Neil Marshall is one of eight people missing, presumed dead, after the plane they were aboard disappeared in the Upper Spencer Gulf near Whyalla in South Australia on Wednesday night.
Union efforts to convince the Democrats that the Government's pattern bargaining bill will unfairly tip the bargaining balance in employers' favour appear to have paid off, with the party signalling yesterday that it had stepped back from its earlier position of being more inclined to amend than reject the legislation.
