Unions will today call on Fair Work Australia to lift pay rates for apprentices to ensure young people continue to have a pathway to secure jobs and Australia can have a reliable supply of skilled workers. Launching a case in the Fair Work Commission brought by unions in Sydney today,…

State boost as jobs relocate from India to Kingston The Australian Services Union has welcomed a decision from telecommunications company Vodafone to relocate 750 call centre jobs from Mumbai to Tasmanian region Kingston, with valuable assistance from the Australian and Tasmanian Governments. Today Prime Minister Julia Gillard will announce the…

That is what JTG representatives told ASU delegates and officials who met with representatives from Jetset Travelworld Group and Qantas by teleconference on Monday 25th February 2013 to discuss the "productivity reporting" scheme, unimaginatively called "Who Did What" that JTG want to introduce for JTG services and Qantas employees at…

Negotiations for the TSF Social Enterprise Agreement 2013 continued on 15th February. During the meeting TSF management outlined issues they wished to address as follows (ASU response in red italics): Amend TSF Vision and Mission Statement. Agreed. Remove reference to awards. Agreement to clearer reference to underpinning awards: Social, Community, Home…

Payroll just doesn't seem to be getting any better at Jetstar. Errors are still occurring and while we know Jetstar is doing a review of their system – can we be confident that it will all be fixed? Your ASU National delegates are due to meet Jetstar for our regular…

The ASU National Negotiating Team (NNT) met with Virgin management on 14th February 2013 (Valentine's Day) for our 3rd bargaining meeting about the new Ground Crew Agreement. We were waiting expectantly for some positive responses from Virgin management to the detailed clauses that we had tabled at our two previous…

ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver has declared unions are in for the long haul to campaign for better job security in Australia, beginning with a national portable entitlements scheme. Delivering a major address to the National Press Club in Canberra on 6 February, Oliver said job and income security would be…

During the course of the negotiations for a new agreement for Virgin Ground Crew your ASU National Negotiations Team members asked Virgin management to review and check the way annual leave loading has been paid to shift workers. Clause 29(c) of the annual leave clause in the current Virgin Australia…

The establishment of a Services Leaders Group to advise government and drive reforms is necessary to secure jobs and achieve growth, said the Australian Services Union and the Finance Sector Union today. “With more than 20,000 Australian services sector jobs lost off-shore each year, this announcement is a crucial step…

On Wednesday, 13 February 2013, negotiations for your new agreement reached a standstill. Unfortunately despite the best efforts of your union and the employee representatives to progress negotiations, the management negotiating team would not budge from their position of 2.5% a year for a two year agreement, instead preferring to…