The Andrews Labor Government has brought in Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner to help broker a peace deal in the standoff between paid and volunteer firefighters, which has spilled over into the federal election campaign.
The Federal Court has issued an interim injunction that restricts the CFMEU to convening no more than one union meeting a week for building workers engaged by subcontractors on a Commonwealth Games construction project on Queensland's Gold Coast.
An FWC full bench has confirmed that the Rail Tram and Bus Union is not entitled to represent the industrial interests of members covered by a new agreement for the maintenance contractor serving Fortescue Metals Group's rail operations in the Pilbara.
The Federal Court has found that the CFMEU unlawfully coerced construction joint venturers when it threatened to take industrial action on a "national scale" and bring about "Armageddon" if they sought to enforce an anti-strike order.
The CFMEU says the construction watchdog prosecuted its national secretary, Michael O'Connor, on the basis of flimsy evidence, in an effort to politically embarrass his brother, shadow workplace relations minister Brendan O'Connor.
The FWC has rejected bullying allegations against Essential Energy's chief executive officer, but has ordered the company to accept voluntary redundancy applications from two employees who brought the anti-bullying claim because the cost of keeping them on the books when there is no meaningful work is "irrational, absurd and ridiculous".
Lend Lease has secured an order to prevent further industrial action at a strife-torn hospital construction site until the project's scheduled completion in August, but the FWC has stopped short of finding that the CFMEU and CEPU organised workers to walk off the job.
The Federal Court has cast doubt on whether there is a basis for ordering a company to pay penalties or compensation for adverse action against a worker, because it never acted on a recommendation to dismiss him for making a harassment claim that allegedly had shaky foundations.
