A FWC full bench will tomorrow consider whether to terminate or suspend tugboat operator Svitzer's planned indefinite national lockout on Friday, after the company told Vice President Adam Hatcher it is not prepared to delay it and does not believe conciliation will help.
Towage company Svitzer is set to lock out its harbour tugboat workforce, claiming it has been forced into it by continuing disruptive protected action by three maritime unions.
The CFMMEU's mining & energy division is seeking authorisation from members to take industrial action as it pursues the replacement of the biggest enterprise agreement in the Queensland coalfields, after losing patience with BHP in FWC-brokered negotiations.
The Productivity Commission says the workplace tribunal should have a "fast-track process" for early involvement in industrial disputes on the docks, while waterfront employers should have more options for taking their own protected action beyond lockouts.
Unions say an "eleventh hour" NSW Government ultimatum to seek to terminate deals covering train workers unless they call off all protected action by tomorrow afternoon is a clear example of the type of action that federal IR Minister Tony Burke will not support.
A prominent IR academic has told today's jobs summit that the optimism that attended the Fair Work Act's introduction in 2009 was "misplaced", with workers in the years since unable to effectively exercise power when bargaining.
The Perth-based newspaper group controlled by billionaire Kerry Stokes has struck an in-principle agreement with three unions, ending an 11-week lockout.
Striking NSW paramedics and hospital workers will on Thursday add to mounting pressure on the Perrottet Government to ditch its 2.5% cap on public sector pay rises, deliver a significant catch-up increase, update awards and open up productivity-based bargaining.
In a decision closely examining the FWC's powers to make scope orders, a full bench majority has found that an employer's failure to spell out classifications for a proposed agreement rendered the process "defective".
