Workers in retail and fast-food outlets, including Woolworths, Hungry Jack's and KFC, are being underpaid more than $300 million a year, in a national wages scandal centred on deals struck with the socially conservative Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association (SDA).
Fairfax Media has uncovered evidence that some of Australia's biggest employers are paying their employees less than the award in a longstanding and cosy partnership between big retail and fast-food employers and the union.
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As we go to print, the students occupying the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) administration building at Rozelle can proudly say that theirs is the longest occupation in the history of the University of Sydney.
It has now surpassed the 10-day occupation, in 1983, of the Department of Political Economy.
The occupiers want the university to guarantee it will let SCA stay at Callan Park, drop its proposal for a 60% staff cut and reinstate the Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA).
Last month I read an article that first appeared in the Huffington Post titled "X Marks the Spot Where Inequality Took Root: Dig Here".
It explains how real wages in the US shadowed growth in productivity in the years after World War II. But in the mid-1970s wages growth completely stalled.
If wages had continued to shadow productivity growth they would now be double what they are today. This explains a lot about contemporary US society: all the gains of increased productivity have been absorbed by the rich.
has launched the first of two important collaborative projects that will be of much interest to left activists and scholars internationally.
The federal government has published a proposed law to restrict the rights of firefighters and other emergency service workers.
The new law will amend the Fair Work Act to ban enterprise agreements covering workers employed by a 鈥渄esignated emergency management body鈥 from containing 鈥渙bjectionable鈥 terms 鈥 including requirements for management to consult with the relevant union.
BoJack Horseman
Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Designed by Lisa Hanawalt
Starring Will Arnett, Amy Sedaris
Created by Raphael Bob-Wakesburg in collaboration with Lisa Hanawalt, who had previously worked with him on the web comic Tip Me Over, Pour Me Out, the critically acclaimed for BoJack Horseman is a black comedy satirising Hollywood and celebrity culture.
The 2016 Critics Choice Award winning show follows the exploits of BoJack (Will Arnett), a washed up former star as he struggles to regain relevance in Hollywood.
The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Australian Maritime Officer's Union (AMOU) have hailed a High Court victory that will protect local jobs on offshore oil and gas projects and curb the exploitation of foreign workers.
The High Court unanimously ruled on August 31 against the federal government's decision to exempt workers on vessels in the offshore oil and gas industry from visa requirements. The unions argued that the exemptions provided an incentive for companies to hire foreigners on lower wages and undercut safety standards and conditions.
New research suggests that Tasmanian devils are evolving resistance to Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD), which has seen devil populations decline by between 80% and 90%.
Following the extinction of the thylacine in the 1930s, devils have become the top marsupial predator, keeping numbers of feral cats at bay.
With the decline of the devils, feral cats have grown in numbers and small mammals on which cats prey have declined.
Scientists have identified significant changes in DNA samples of devils from regions with DFTD.
More than 60 people took part in a vigil outside the Broadmeadows Magistrates鈥 Court on September 2 to support Jasmine Pilbrow who was found guilty of 鈥渋nterference with a crew member of an aircraft鈥.
In February last year, Pilbrow refused to take her seat on a Qantas aircraft in which a Tamil asylum seeker was being taken to Darwin before being deported to Sri Lanka.
Melanie Brown told the gathering her friend had peacefully explained to others on the plane her reasons for taking the action. Two other people then also stood up.
In a big development in industrial dispute involving Carlton and United Breweries (CUB) and the 55 maintenance workers it has sacked in Melbourne, the contractor at the centre of the dispute, Programmed Skilled, has broken its contract with the brewery.
The 55 workers were sacked in June 鈥 then offered their jobs back with a 65% pay cut. The company brought in unskilled scab labour, with the sacked workers, backed by the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), picketing the Abbotsford factory.
The good turnout to national rallies on August 27 and 28 shows the refugee rights' movement is starting to gain political ground. A number of pro-asylum seeker groups are forming to force an end to the cruel policy of locking up refugees in offshore detention.
Refugee rights activists are pleased with the September 1 announcement that Wilson Security will not tender for another contract for Australia's offshore detention centres, but say the camps must be closed immediately.
Wilson's contract ends in October next year. It follows an announcement in May by Ferrovial, a Spanish infrastructure company which took over Broadspectrum (formerly Transfield), that it would not be renewing its contract on Manus Island and Nauru when it ends in February.
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