A Federal Court finding that CFMMEU construction and general division Queensland branch secretary Michael Ravbar engaged in coercion and adverse action may be raised in future proceedings about his fitness to hold an entry permit.
The union leading the campaign against prospective job losses at a major brewery is at risk of being sidelined after the FWC found it "reached the line between [unacceptably careless disregard] and. . . deliberate non-compliance" in failing to communicate restraining notices to members.
The FWO has launched a challenge to last month's Federal Court order for the MUA to pay a $38,000 fine for a single contravention of the prohibition on unlawful strikes, when the watchdog was seeking $3.6 million for what it says was more than 500 breaches during industrial action against stevedore Hutchison Ports.
An order requiring the NTEU to give a university more than the statutory three days' notice of protected industrial action has been quashed by an FWC full bench that found a tribunal member wrongly presupposed that any such action would be suspended by the Commission if it interfered with student exams or graduation.
A judge has today comprehensively rejected an FWO attempt to rewrite the way courts assess fines for unlawful strikes, ordering the CFMMEU's MUA division to pay $38,000 for a solitary contravention after the watchdog sought $3.6 million in penalties for more than 500 breaches.
In a significant ruling that might reduce penalties regulators can win for Fair Work Act breaches, the Federal Court has found that the legislation's double jeopardy provision prevents the imposition of separate fines for related contraventions arising from the same conduct.
The FWC has granted an entry permit to a former CFMEU official once fined $30,000 for blockading a worksite and abusing workers in a bid to coerce Grocon into making an agreement, hearing he became a "different person" once employed as an AWU organiser.
The MUA delegate whose loss of casual stevedoring shifts sparked last year's Webb Dock blockade was earlier mistakenly provided with a letter by the container terminal operator's HR-IR director declaring him a full-timer, the Federal Court has been told.
The FWO is seeking to fine the CFMMEU's MUA division more than $3.5 million for unlawful industrial action against Hutchison Ports, using a novel argument that historic contraventions of the same Fair Work Act provision denies the union the benefit of the legislation's single course of conduct mechanism.
Two Esso Australia union delegates have failed to convince the FWC that their summary dismissals for isolating and abusing workers who accepted lower-paying contracts were unfair or in breach of the company's disciplinary policy.
