Agreements and bargaining page 114 of 175

Woolworths has committed to working with the NUW to ensure that it complies with minimum labour and human rights standards in its fresh food supply chain, while it has also struck a new enterprise agreement for its Victorian warehouses that increases pay by 4% a year.

The CFMEU says it is confident in its challenge to an agreement Thiess struck with three maintenance workers prior to securing a major mining contract, after a full Federal Court remitted the employer's appeal on the basis that an FWC full bench wrongly denied the union "the fruits of its victory".

A union delegate has been reinstated after the FWC determined that the absence of managerial opposition to a brief on-site "undies" protest meant it failed the legislative definition of unlawful industrial action.

In a decision signalling potential judicial pushback against so-called "sham" agreements, a Federal Court has quashed a two-year-old deal approved by three employees that now covers more than 1000 mining services workers, ruling that the employer made inadequate efforts to explain a document benchmarked against 11 different awards.

The giant miner Glencore has extended the lockout of about 190 workers at its Oaky North coal mine in Queensland for another two weeks, to 132 days. Meanwhile, the union that represents the mineworkers has a new general secretary.

The Fair Work Ombudsman is pushing for the NUW to pay $800,000 in damages to retailer Woolworths over alleged unlawful industrial action in 2015 at two distribution centres in Melbourne.

Magnum forcing agreement overhaul, says Streets; Toll slapped for refusing casual conversion; Court imposes "unusual" penalty for CFMEU coercion.

The Federal Court has dismissed the nursing union's bid to stop Bupa cutting jobs, finding that 23 potential redundancies in a workforce of 3000 did not constitute a "major" change that would trigger an agreement's consultation clause.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said last night that she made an offer to the Opposition to split-off into a separate Bill elements of the "four-yearly review" legislation that enable the FWC to overlook technical and minor errors in agreements, after tribunal president Iain Ross twice wrote asking her to urgently secure its passage.

The Federal Court has tossed out a challenge to an FWC full bench decision, describing confidence in the administration of justice as a "significant factor" in finding Energy Australia's case an abuse of process.