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<TITLE>IR laws face first test on WA site</TITLE>
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<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial">Hi All</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial">Not sure if members have seen this, but it looks like the first big dispute under</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial">W</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial">orkChoices</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial"> may have already begun, with John Holland pushing for AWA</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial">s on a Port Hedland construction site. Link below to the article in todays west.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=5 FACE="Arial">IR laws face first test on WA site</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><BR>
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</SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">KIM MACDONALD</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The first big test of Australia's new industrial laws is set to play out on a Port Hedland building site, with construction giant John Holland abandoning negotiations with unions and instead offering its own employment contracts directly to 180 individual workers.<BR>
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John Holland's move, which emerges just three days after the Federal Government's controversial industrial laws came into force, ends a decades-old convention under which pay and conditions for new projects are negotiated with a union and then offered to potential workers.<BR>
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The decision to employ workers on the new contracts rather than under an enterprise bargaining agreement negotiated with the union came after John Holland failed to reach a deal with two unions over a $160 million jetty the company is building for BHP in the North-West town.<BR>
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<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://www.thewest.com.au/20060330/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto133813.html"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://www.thewest.com.au/20060330/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto133813.html</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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