The High Court decision has been handed down, and upheld the constitutionality of a national IR system based on the corporations power. From the High Court’s media release (pdf): The High Court, by a 5-2 majority, rejected these submissions and upheld the Commonwealth’s reliance on the corporations power. It rejected the challenge to the central [...]
This morning Kevin Andrews announced some important changes to the WorkChoices package. While John Howard claimed that the changes were “a bit for both sides”, the media largely saw through it — for example, this article was headlined More IR protection for bosses, and it was written with comment from the Government and the Chamber [...]
Joe Hockey was added to the WorkChoices PR roster when it became apparent that Kevin Andrews couldn’t sell the package. It looks like Hockey is struggling, too: when asked why politicians weren’t forced to beg for pay rises, he stormed out of an industrial relations conference, swearing at reporters: Hockey reacted angrily to a journalist’s [...]
A CEPU organiser noticed that postmen were listening to iPods while doing their rounds, and the union realised that this was a great way to provide their members with information about the current Australia Post EBA negotiations. So far, three episodes of the EBA7 podcast have been produced: [audio:http://www.cepu.asn.au/comms/section_campaigns/ap_eba7/media/podcast-01.mp3] [audio:http://www.cepu.asn.au/comms/section_campaigns/ap_eba7/media/podcast-02.mp3] [audio:http://www.cepu.asn.au/comms/section_campaigns/ap_eba7/media/podcast-03.mp3] Keep an eye on [...]
… apart from my return to the blogosphere. Union membership is on the rise, thanks to WorkChoices and the union movement’s excellent response to the Beaconsfield disaster: Tasmania’s unions are experiencing a surge in popularity, with an upswing in membership for the first time in decades. The union movement had been steadily losing members since [...]
