Industrial action/disputes page 23 of 81

In a decision that has piqued the interest of local unions, a US National Labor Relations Board majority has upheld a ruling that deploying a giant "Scabby the Rat" near neutral employers did not amount to an illegal secondary boycott.

The Federal Court has reined in fines sought against a union official after accepting he organised a building site stopwork and unlawfully requested strike pay out of "guilt" for telling workers they wouldn't get in trouble for attending a "Change The Rules" rally.

An FWC full bench has called for the Commission to win stronger powers to curb "serial litigation", after it awarded indemnity costs against a worker who sought to overturn a failed four-year-old reclassification ruling.

In another test of public-private ventures, prison officers at the country's largest and newest correctional centre are considering striking after overwhelmingly rejecting what the CPSU called a "lowball" deal put forward by operator Serco Australia.

The FWC has rebuffed Wesfarmers subsidiary Officeworks' request that it be represented by law firm Freehills in a dispute with the SDA and has suggested, based on correspondence from the company, that its head of HR, Heidi Dorman, should appear.

The TWU has warned that food and fuel supplies across Australia could be "crippled" by striking truck drivers after members today rejected a new deal by Toll it claims would "obliterate" decent jobs.

Major stevedore Patrick says it is facing costly delays at its Sydney and Fremantle container terminals as a result of continuing protected action by MUA members after a bargaining deadlock that it blames on the union failing to give ground on its recruitment veto.

An employer rightly deducted 12 hours' pay from mineworkers who took as little as five minutes to secure their machinery and make it safe in preparation for protected action on five occasions across three days, the Federal Court has held.

In a novel use of the Corporations Act in an IR setting, logistics company DHL has secured an urgent interlocutory injunction to stop the UWU procuring alleged confidential information from about 60 shop stewards that might have given it a significant advantage in enterprise negotiations underway across the company's sites.

The Federal Court has today imposed $100,000 in fines and costs on the CFMMEU and a delegate who stopped work on a construction site due to safety concerns, but has criticised the ABCC for "over-egging" its case and of having "difficulty turning", like "a battleship in full steam" when it learned that the facts had changed.