The US Supreme Court announced that it had reached a 4-4 tie in the Friedrichs case that challenged the legality of allowing unions to charge an agency or fair share fee to non-members. The tie upholds a lower court decision that recognizes the constitutionality of the agency fee system, but does not prevent similar cases from making their way through the federal courts in the coming years. In issuing a 4-4 opinion in Friedrichs v.
Fears of a massive jobs exodus from the west could be realised with a planned 'real cut' to wages as the Barnett Government in Western Australia imposes a 1.5%-a-year wages cap for agreements replacing those expiring after June 1 this year. The Government says the cap is "consistent" with State Treasury's CPI forecast for 2015-2016 however UnionsWA secretary Meredith Hammat said the Government's forecast is for a 2% increase in the CPI for 2016-17, "so
The Research Report on the Proposed Reforms to Western Australian Prisons Sector by Associate Professor Jane Andrew, Dr Max Baker and Dr Phillip Roberts from the University of Sydney is now available. This research report emerges from a larger research project, entitled ‘The Costs, Performance, Efficiency and Accountability of Australian Private Prisons’ which examines the effects of prison privatization in different states within Australia, and evaluates the types
TPP: What you need to know and what you can do about it The Trans Pacific Partnership allows foreign corporations to bypass our courts and sue our governments in international tribunals if they can argue that future laws could harm their investment (read: their profits).
The Western Australian government has recently concluded an inquiry into prisons and the recommendations point to an alarming new trend in the management of public prisons called commissioning. The inquiry was conducted by the Economic Regulation Authority (ERA), which was charged with looking into options to improve the efficiency and performance of WA prisons.
Congratulations from across the ditch to Glenn Barclay who has been nominated as the new national secretary of New Zealand’s largest union, the Public Service Association (PSA). Glenn is taking over the role of Richard Wagstaff who has been national secretary for 16 years and is now moving on to his new role as president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. Glenn will join fellow national secretary Erin Polaczuk to lead the 62,000 strong membership. Glenn is a familiar face within our region and the Public Services Internati
The Centre for Policy Development, has produced a new report entitled Grand Alibis, how declining public sector capability affects services for the disadvantaged, which asks whether "contracting out improved the public sector's capability to address persistent disadvantage and meet complex needs?" The report argues that government’s role in designing and delivering integrated, flexible and holistic human services is more important than ever, but that the capabilities it needs to do so are u
As a result of the global attacks on Government provision of services and infrastructure, the Public Services International, the global Union Federation of public service unions, called a meeting of all major affiliates across the world, which was held at the AFSCME Offices (US Public Sector Union) in Washington DC in early December 2015. For the last two days public services' union leaders from across the globe and policy leaders from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the U.S.
A new report, released in Europe, highlights the need for governments around the globe to urgently address international corporate tax system loopholes. The report is timely, given the Turnbull Liberal Government’s current tax reform agenda. The report, ‘Still Broken’, illustrates how United States corporations have avoided an estimated $US1.45 billion of tax in Australia each year by shifting their profits to low or no tax countries.
The TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) parties have reached in-principle agreement. The details are still secret and won’t be made public for at least another month. Despite wide-spread public opposition to the trade agreement, specifically the pharmaceutical support arrangements and the investor-state dispute settlement clause, the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) have now reached in-principle agreement. The TPP is a huge multilateral agreement covering Australia, New Zealand, Canada
