The CFMEU construction and general division's "cavalier attitude" to court orders has cost it another $125,000, with the Federal Court finding it in contempt of undertakings not to block access to a Victorian wind farm project last year.
In further legal fallout from the 2012 Grocon dispute, the Federal Court has ruled that the CFMEU and eight of its officials unlawfully coerced the company to agree to its demand to employ union-nominated shop stewards when they blocked access to the Myer Emporium and McNab Avenue sites.
The High Court will in April hear the CFMEU's argument that it should not be compelled to give Boral information to help the company win its contempt case against the union for allegedly defying injunctions at Victoria's Regional Rail project.
Honouring one of its election commitments, the Victorian Labor Government will today introduce legislation to abolish the former Coalition Government's anti-picketing laws.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's secondary boycott case against the CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch has been set down for a six-week trial in September next year.
Tasmania's Legislative Council has passed a Government bill designed to curtail rights to engage in workplace-disrupting pickets and protests, but only after removing mandatory jail terms for repeat offenders.
Senior Victorian Government Minister Robert Clark has told the HR Nicholls Society that he has drawn on all three of his portfolios to combat bad behaviour in the building industry and has flagged changes to strengthen the guidelines for contractors seeking state government work.
The ruling UK Conservative Party will lift the attendance threshold for strike ballots, impose a three month limit on industrial action and clamp down on picketing if it wins next year's election, while Britain's peak union body has called on the government to introduce online voting.
The FWBC has included CFMEU construction and general division national secretary Dave Noonan in its fourth prosecution over the $1.2 billion Perth Children's Hospital project.
A senior IR lawyer has told the HR Nicholls Society the Fair Work Act should be amended to ban protected industrial action that has serious consequences and to remove entirely the rights of high income earners to strike, in a presentation predicting the decline of the MUA's power and influence.
