Former HSU national secretary Craig Thomson will be sentenced next Tuesday, after Lesley Taylor SC, for the prosecution, today told Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg that anything less than an immediate custodial sentence would be "manifestly inadequate".
Stoljar, Elliott, Roughley the Royal Commission legal team; Senate committee to report on Fair Work Amendment Bill by early June; FWC president appoints Harcourt to super expert panel; and IR ministers unchanged after WA and Victorian reshuffles.
The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption will hold its first hearing next month and Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon will hand his final report to the federal government at the end of the year.
South Australian Employee Ombudsman Stephen Brennan has been charged with falsifying accounts and dishonesty when secretary of the TCFU's former SA/Tasmanian branch, while the Fair Work Commission is continuing to investigate the branch's financial affairs.
A Sydney-based silk with a strong suit in commercial law is tipped for the crucial role of counsel assisting the royal commission into the governance of unions and their financial dealings.
Flagging new strategies to give workers a collective voice, ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons has rejected recent calls for an "accommodation" with employers and told unions not to be afraid of conflict and controversy.
Fair Work Commission general manager Bernadette O'Neill will seek civil penalties against the Musicians' Union and one of its officials for 118 alleged breaches of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act.
The Abbott Government says it has given former High Court judge Dyson Heydon a broad brief to probe employer behaviour and the role of police in industrial matters in the royal commission announced this afternoon, but the focus of its terms of reference is squarely on union misconduct.
The Coalition has largely succeeded in neutralising IR as a 2013 federal election issue by promising to retain – at least for one term – Labor's Fair Work framework, but Australia's two major parties are still going to the September 7 poll with some significant policy differences, including on paid parental leave, right of entry, and construction industry regulation. Workplace Express compares their IR policies and those of the Greens, whose future hold on the Senate balance of power is uncertain.
