Workers at a Victorian timber mill have voted up an enterprise agreement they turned down last month, ending a bitter 10-week lockout the Victorian Government had been seeking to terminate.
The main protagonists have landed their last blows ahead of Sunday penalty rate cuts coming into effect this weekend, United Voice calling on restaurant and pub patrons to pressure bosses over whether they value their staff, while AiG insists that July 1's parallel "hefty" minimum wage rise not only sees workers better off, but saddles employers with bigger wage bills.
An employer who refused requests by police and an OHS inspector to allow two CFMEU officials onto her building site to investigate a Facebook-notified safety issue has avoided an $18,500 penalty because the union's notice of entry did not include the officials' middle names.
The Fair Work Commission will next week hear the Andrews Government's bid to suspend a two-month lockout of about 200 workers by Carter Holt Harvey Wood Products in central Victoria.
As NSW's Berejiklian Government prepares to outsource some bus services in metropolitan Sydney, it has seen off a union bid to win a five-year employment guarantee, enhanced redundancy entitlements and transfer payments for transport workers moved to a private provider in Newcastle.
Just a week after RBA Governor Philip Lowe called for workers to push for bigger wage rises, the FWC has approved a deal that secures increases of just 2% a year for his own 1000-strong workforce, but with the prospect, for some, of also winning performance-based bonuses.
