In a significant decision as to what constitutes industrial action, a full Federal Court has found that the legislative framework does not capture instances where a subcontractor's workers down tools with the support of their direct employer.
Unions are continuing to embrace affirmative action measures to increase women's participation and ensure leadership reflects membership, the FWC this week approving ASU rule changes requiring a woman to hold at least one of three new leadership positions.
Unions NSW will in December argue before the High Court that that the "desired goal" of State restrictions on spending by third party campaigners is to deliberately create an uneven playing field by ensuring parties and candidates enjoy a "privileged position" in elections.
The FWC has ordered Broadspectrum's WA court security and transport officers to suspend protected action, finding that banning overtime and ditching uniforms posed a risk to the public, court and hospital staff and the prisoners themselves.
The FWC has recommended that an employer release an AWU delegate an hour early to catch a flight to the union's annual women's conference, finding it not unreasonable under the terms of its agreement to refuse her a full day off during sugarcane crushing season.
A Federal Court finding that CFMMEU construction and general division Queensland branch secretary Michael Ravbar engaged in coercion and adverse action may be raised in future proceedings about his fitness to hold an entry permit.
A Federal Court judge has evoked the memory of the BLF's deregistration in the course of handing out maximum fines to the CFMMEU for "deplorable" breaches by a past State branch president, suggesting that any organisation that fails to rein in aberrant behaviour "cannot expect to remain registered in its existing form".
A full Federal Court has today ushered in a new age in which union officials are held personally liable for breaching IR laws, ordering a CFMMEU organiser to pay almost $20,000 from his own pocket for his role in disrupting work at a construction site in 2013.
Employer groups are considering a High Court challenge to the rejection by an FWC full bench of their bid to reverse the amalgamation of the CFMEU, MUA and TCFU.
