A court has today imposed fines of 90% of the maximum on the "rogue" construction union and 80% on its Queensland leader for failing to provide 24 hours notice before officials entered a construction site for bargaining discussions with workers, after the head contractor insisted they be held off-site.
A Federal Court judge has accepted that the CFMMEU's offer to foot the bill for external training of its officials amounted to exhibiting enough contrition to keep a lid on penalties for entry breaches.
The Federal Court has criticised the ABCC's "misrepresentation" of evidence in pleadings and a media release, concluding the watchdog bore some responsibility for a subsequent report in a national newspaper that wrongly stated that a CFMMEU organiser made a "throat-slitting" gesture to a truck driver.
A judge has walked the fine line between factoring in the CFMMEU's history of legal transgressions and imposing a sanction proportionate to the breach by adding $10,000 to penalties levied on the union after an official blew cigarette smoke in an ER coordinator's face.
The FWC has issued a new permit to a CFMMEU organiser who asserted that a "no ticket, no start" policy applied on a Queensland construction site, while it has rejected ABCC Commissioner Steve McBurney's bid to "impugn" training provided by former tribunal member Jeff Lawrence.
A FWC full bench has upheld as "legally rational and reasonably available" a finding that CFMMEU construction and general division WA branch organiser Walter "Vinnie" Molina is not a fit and proper person to hold an entry permit.
The financial implications of the ABCC's Pattinson High Court case being heard today have been reinforced by the Federal Court's latest ruling against the CFMMEU, a judge acknowledging that while the $460,000 fine factored in the union's long history of contraventions it still needed to be "proportionate" to the breaches involved.
The Federal Court has largely declined to take into account the CFMMEU's "recidivism" in setting a penalty against it for an organiser's unintended racial slur when he complained to a supervisor of southeast Asian background about the "third world" state of a Perth building site.
The CFMMEU's engagement of a former FWC presidential member to coach its officials has paid dividends after the Federal Court reduced an organiser's fines after considering his evidence the training had "helped me with the emotional side of the job".
The FWC has chosen not to withdraw an entry permit from a CFMMEU organiser fined $4500 for belittling and bullying conduct but warned the "well from which he drank" by expressing contrition and offering assurances "will likely have run dry" if he returns.