Workers & unions

Carlton and United Brewery (CUB) is trying to impose a 65% pay cut on its maintenance workforce. The 54 electricians and fitters were called to a meeting in a pub on June 10 and told their jobs were terminated. They were then told they could reapply for their jobs with a company called Catalyst Recruitment which is part of the Programmed/Skilled Group. Five apprentices have been left in limbo with no jobs and no trade qualifications.

Cleaners won greater protection against unfair dismissal and loss of entitlements in a Fair Work Commission (FWC) decision on July 12. FWC awarded the cleaners entitlements they had lost when they were transferred to a new company, after their former employer lost a cleaning contract with two Sydney hotels. Mel Gatfield, NSW secretary of the cleaners' union, United Voice, said the case was "hugely significant”, not just for the 19 cleaners who have received $70,000 in redundancy payments, but for the legal precedent it sets.

Twenty-five per cent of Australian Rules football players are now women and girls, a figure that has doubled in the past five years. From February next year, eight new women's teams will compete in a national, six-round, AFL competition. Announcing the women's league last month, AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said it would “change the game forever, [… uneasy pause …] for the good”.

Malcolm Turnbull's very slim majority is no mandate to re-introduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and other anti-worker legislation that he could not get through the previous Senate. The silence from the government was deafening during the election campaign, even though the ABCC legislation was the trigger. The ABCC was hardly mentioned. It only highlights the fact that Turnbull did not want to give the average worker the opportunity to scrutinise the finer details of his proposals to attack workers' rights.

British Labour Jeremy Corbyn's name should automatically be on the ballot paper in the Labour Party's leadership contest, the party's national executive committee (NEC) ruled on July 12.

The Venezuelan government announced on July 11 that it had seized a factory of the US company Kimberly Clark Corporation — producer of numerous personal, feminine, and baby care brands including Huggies, Kotex, and many others, TeleSUR English said that day.

The victory of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) in the June 23 referendum was the result of — and is intensifying — a huge right-wing anti-immigration campaign.

French unions protested on July 5 as the government forced a bill attacking workers’ rights through a hostile parliament. “This is a counter-productive law, socially and economically,” said Marie-Jose Kotlicki, a member of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). “The government is making a mistake in underestimating the level of discontent over this law.”

French unions protested on July 5 as the government forced a bill attacking workers’ rights through a hostile parliament. “This is a counter-productive law, socially and economically,” said Marie-Jose Kotlicki, a member of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). “The government is making a mistake in underestimating the level of discontent over this law.”

Maintenance workers at Griffin Coal and their supporters held a protest outside the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in Perth's CBD on July 5. They called for a stay on the commission's decision to terminate the recent enterprise bargaining agreement between the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and the company, citing the latter's alleged unprofitability. Griffin Coal claims to be surviving only due to financial support from its parent company, Lanco Infratech. The 70 workers, who work at Collie in WA's south-west, face a 43% pay cut if the FWC's decision were to stand.

Domino's Pizza workers are missing out on penalty rates worth at least $32 million a year due to an old deal struck between the company and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). Under a deal struck in 2009, before the introduction of the national award system, which set minimum standards for the fast-food industry, Domino's need not pay workers penalty rates for late-night or weekend shifts.

Nearly 70 staff at eheadspace — the national youth mental health service headspace's round-the-clock telephone and online counselling provider — were told they had just 24 hours to sign on to individual agreements that locked in year-long wage freezes, or they would lose their jobs. A dispute has been listed in the Fair Work Commission after headspace refused requests to extend the deadline. "For an iconic healthcare service, they don't treat their staff with any better respect than 7-Eleven or Grill'd," Health and Community Services Union organiser Serena Ho said.