Agreements page 15 of 122

In the first test of Secure Jobs zombie-slayer provisions, a FWC full bench has refused to delay the automatic axing of a scaffolding company's 14-year-old deal after establishing that, contrary to the employer's claims, many of its workers will be better off under the award.

An employer had no obligation to make eight workers redundant despite asking them to sign "binding" expressions of interest, a court has ruled.

A FWC full bench will next month hear a Virgin Australia subsidiary's bid for an intractable bargaining declaration, in the first test of the Secure Jobs legislation's deadlock-breaking provision, while the tribunal will consider in late August RAFFWU's bid to terminate the world's largest company's enterprise agreement.

The FWC has refused to suspend engineers' industrial action at a Virgin Australia subsidiary while their employer pursues an intractable bargaining declaration, in an early test of the new Secure Jobs provision.

The MUA says crew working on ships servicing key offshore gas operations have stopped protected action over their workplace compensation arrangements, but maritime employers have warned the struggle to find insurers is an industry-wide problem.

Tugboat operator Svitzer has been ordered to extend a rating's fixed-term contract after the FWC speculated that his senior role at the MUA was the real reason he was the only member of his crew not offered continuing employment.

In its first decision since pay secrecy penalties took effect this month, the FWC has rejected an employer's bid to redact a "commercially sensitive" list of clients included in a proposed agreement.

Apple says it expects to put a new agreement to retail workers next month as it resists RAFFWU's bid to axe the tech giant's 2014 deal, which the SDA also contends is replete with "palpable and entrenched unfairness" but refuses to support or oppose terminating while bargaining.

In the latest of a rash of PABO decisions since new Secure Jobs provisions took effect on June 6, the FWC has ruled that an employer's bid to bypass unions and put its agreement to a vote provides exceptional circumstances to warrant using a non-AEC ballot agent.

In the first test of new supported bargaining laws, the FWC will hear in mid-August the landmark application to authorise multi-employer negotiations involving 65 employers and 12,000 workers in the early childhood education and care sector.