A Federal Court judge has questioned the "wisdom or fairness" of laws requiring employers to subtract four hours' pay for as little as 10 minutes unprotected action, after finding the AWU breached the Fair Work Act when an official asked a BlueScope manager not to dock returning strikers for starting a shift late.
The FWC has rejected arguments that the CFMEU engaged in pattern bargaining during negotiations over agreements with two crane operators, clearing the path for indefinite strikes to begin early this morning.
Victoria University is trying to head off an NTEU bid for a protected action ballot order, after professional and academic staff voted down by 77% a deal labelled "one of the worst proposals" tabled in the latest tertiary education bargaining round.
National Rugby League referees are pushing ahead with a protected action ballot in pursuit of a ground-breaking enterprise agreement and greater job security than offered under their current 12-month contracts.
Alcoa says it would welcome an "alternative proposal" from the AWU after striking workers resoundingly rejected its latest offer, but it will not withdraw a bid to terminate the current deal.
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.
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.
The union leading the campaign against prospective job losses at a major brewery is at risk of being sidelined after the FWC found it "reached the line between [unacceptably careless disregard] and. . . deliberate non-compliance" in failing to communicate restraining notices to members.
The FWO has launched a challenge to last month's Federal Court order for the MUA to pay a $38,000 fine for a single contravention of the prohibition on unlawful strikes, when the watchdog was seeking $3.6 million for what it says was more than 500 breaches during industrial action against stevedore Hutchison Ports.
An order requiring the NTEU to give a university more than the statutory three days' notice of protected industrial action has been quashed by an FWC full bench that found a tribunal member wrongly presupposed that any such action would be suspended by the Commission if it interfered with student exams or graduation.
