The CFMMEU has begun Federal Court action that seeks to hold John Holland and CPB Contracting vicariously liable for subcontractors' alleged underpayment of wages and entitlements on Canberra's light rail project, with the union seeking to recover $700,000 and impose penalties.
An FWC full bench has quashed a finding that BHP Coal should have kept paying or considered alternative duties for a mineworker while his driving licence was suspended, saying it would be tantamount to requiring an employer to excuse from duties but pay workers who turned up drunk.
A company director has been found personally liable for her company's adverse action when a visa worker was threatened with the sack for speaking to an FWO inspector.
The Registered Organisations Commission is seeking information from the HSU's Victorian No 1 branch, in response to what is alleged to be a protected disclosure from a whistleblower.
The FSU has asked the Federal Court to rule that a global currency exchange company is covered by the banking, finance and insurance award, claiming it shifted to the retail award after the recent reduction in penalty rates.
A WA law firm will have to defend a restricted legal practitioner's underpayment and unfair dismissal claims after it failed to convince the state's IRC that he was an independent contractor, with the tribunal finding that only common law employees can be engaged in such roles.
The FWC has chastised an employer for failing to abide by "industrial fair play" when it neglected to tell a worker it would seek to slash his redundancy payment if he didn't accept an alternative role.
The AWU is seeking to change the rules governing the way it counts members after belatedly lodging membership figures of 69,786 as of December 2017 – a drop of 17,420, or 20%, from the figure reported a year earlier – following an external audit conducted at the urging of the ROC.
The Federal Court has upheld Qantas' right to refuse access to documents sought over a "leave burn" program for aircraft engineers, in a decision a union leader says raises the bar for entering workplaces to prove breaches.
As union calls for the ROC's abolition have intensified in the wake of its raids on AWU offices, the watchdog's leadership maintains that behind the scenes there is increasing collaboration over a shared quest to protect members' interests.
