The FWC looks set to reduce by a week its hearings into an application by Coles nightfill worker Penny Vickers to terminate the 2011 agreement, after warning that granting further extensions could render her case moot if the retailer gets a new agreement approved.
A court has found a husband and wife who performed largely home-based clerical work exclusively for one business before their services were further outsourced were employees rather than contractors because the company had an "undoubted authority to control" the relationship.
A cleaner who invoiced as both a sole trader and a company but claims he was an employee is pursuing Woolworths and three contracting businesses for more than $300,000 in underpaid wages and unpaid overtime, annual leave and superannuation he says he should have been paid between 2004 and 2015.
The FWC has reaffirmed its jurisdictional ambit to determine right-of-entry disputes after an employer questioned whether it was seeking to exercise judicial powers it does not possess.
Major construction company Laing O'Rourke has failed to convince the FWC that a current agreement clause could effectively render its NSW and ACT deals compliant with the building code, but the tribunal has recommended that the CFMEU and employees take all necessary steps to achieve compliance.
The Federal Court has rejected CFMEU argument that the Fair Work Act's explanatory memorandum compels a finding that union officials are entitled to exercise their entry rights to hold discussions with members and potential members before their shifts begin.
The Turnbull Government has blasted a major builder that negotiated a precedent-setting enterprise agreement with the CFMEU as being "highly unrepresentative" of the construction industry, describing the deal as an act of "commercial self-harm".
Wesfarmers has avoided having chief executive Richard Goyder put on the witness stand ahead of the FWC later this year hearing Penny Vickers' bid to terminate its 2011 supermarkets agreement, after a full bench accepted that the parent company had no role in approving the retailer's 2014 enterprise deal.
The SDA and rival Retail and Fast Food Workers Union have within a month of each other filed bids to terminate Domino's Pizza agreements, while the fast food chain says it has been increasing employees' pay via "discretionary entitlements" and expects to soon have a BOOT-compliant enterprise deal.
