The Productivity Commission has denied it is "sceptical" of the need for unfair dismissal laws, and says the questions it will ask in its IR inquiry is whether they achieve their purpose and if there is a better way of doing things.
In a move that the government has dismissed as a political stunt, the ACTU has told Employment Minister Eric Abetz he should suspend his IR legislative agenda for at least a year to enable the Heydon trade union inquiry and the Productivity Commission Fair Work Act review to run their course.
The secretary of the HSU's Victoria No 1 branch, Diana Asmar, has been returned with a resounding majority, but still faces scrutiny over the branch's alleged failure to follow procedures for issuing entry permits to organisers.
The Australian Institute of Employment Rights says the pending Productivity Commission review of the Fair Work laws risks being a narrow, market-oriented exercise if its terms of reference do not embrace international human rights and labour standards, in a discussion paper released today.
The CFMEU says the Heydon Royal Commission will exceed its powers if it finds the union and its officers guilty of breaking the law, arguing it is only an investigative body.
The HSU has today resolved to provide Victoria Police with evidence that national secretary Kathy Jackson has wrongly spent more than $900,000 of the union's funds on non-union business, while TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon has referred allegations that former WA officials misappropriated $300,000, to both the FWC and the Heydon Royal Commission.
Independent Contractors Australia has challenged an ACCC ruling allowing the TWU to collectively bargain on behalf of a group of owner drivers engaged by Toll.
The ACCC is continuing investigations into allegations aired in the Heydon Royal Commission of anti-competitive conduct by the Transport Workers Union and Toll Holdings.
In a wide-ranging attack on the Heydon Royal Commission, ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons has dubbed it as part of a conservative agenda to restrict "organising, industrial action, right of entry, public campaigning, political action and expenditure, litigation, access to arbitration and the right to be self-governing".
A Cbus Super manager has again denied she collaborated in leaking personal information about Lis-Con employees to the CFMEU despite being warned by Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon that the "time for protecting other people had ended".
