With legal avenues exhausted in their battles with the NSW government over public sector wages, superannuation and redundancy, unions have today lodged a complaint with the ILO and requested a formal investigation into the state's bargaining laws.
In his second major backdown on Australian Defence Force personnel pay and conditions, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has bumped up from 1.5% to an above-inflation 2% the annual wage increases payable under their three-year agreement.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has asked a Victorian Government agency to urgently review the way it engages workers, after an investigation revealed it might be "misclassifying" employees as independent contractors.
The Fair Work Commission has commended BHP Coal's approach to disciplining a tanker driver whose unintentional overwatering of a road at its Peak Downs Mine caused a rollover that wrote off a $1.2m truck and injured a colleague.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz's own department looks next in line to take industrial action in the deadlocked public sector bargaining round - and it will include disrupting the information flow to his office.
The CPSU will ask members at the Department of Agriculture to endorse industrial action including more stringent screening of passengers and cargo at airports and bans on tasks associated with food exports and imports, under a protected ballot application to be lodged today.
The federal public sector's biggest department has made its workforce a new sub-inflation wages offer of 3.5% over three years, with a further 0.9% payable if executive employee numbers remain below a specified ratio.
A state government that lost confidence in its mining warden did not breach his employment contract when it removed him from office, nor did it contravene trade practices laws when it originally offered him the role, a court has ruled.
NSW power unions are pushing for a job security clause to cover thousands of workers at the state's two biggest "poles and wires" network businesses, which have been earmarked for privatisation if the Coalition is returned in March.
