An AMWU organiser penalised this year for his role in a strike over alleged safety issues looks set to win a new entry permit, on the condition that he undergo training on the interaction of IR and OHS statutes and when it is lawful to stop work.
An employer who refused requests by police and an OHS inspector to allow two CFMEU officials onto her building site to investigate a Facebook-notified safety issue has avoided an $18,500 penalty because the union's notice of entry did not include the officials' middle names.
A full Federal Court has found a CFMEU official called onto a Victorian construction site to assist a health and safety representative is not protected by the state's OHS laws and should have had a federal entry permit.
A tribunal has ordered an employer to allow the CFMEU entry to a major freeway construction site to investigate suspected breaches of OHS laws amid claims of threats directed towards its "stressed and anxious" members.
Fortescue Metals Group has failed in a bid to block the CEPU from seeking a declaration that it unduly delayed entry to its WA branch secretary after a 2013 workplace fatality, with a court finding WA's non-harmonised OHS laws are no barrier to entering sites under the Fair Work Act.
Two CFMEU officials, including one posing as croc-hunter Steve Irwin during a construction site visit, are no longer personally liable for $47,000 in fines, after a full Federal Court found the FWBC "pursued" them "under an inappropriate statutory regime".
The Federal Circuit Court has imposed almost $60,000 in penalties for a "blatant single breach" of the Fair Work Act in which a CFMEU official discarded workers' food from a lunch shed, padlocked the door and said the facility was for union members only.
The FWC has acceded to an FWBC bid to impose restrictions for 12 months on CFMEU officials exercising their entry rights across three states and the NT.
FWBC director Nigel Hadgkiss has confirmed that 21 of the 53 matters it currently has before the courts concern right of entry breaches, and the issue is at the centre of a further 19 investigations.
