A full Federal Court majority has today rejected a judge's reasoning for ordering the MUA to pay a fine of just $38,000 for a week-long unlawful strike at Hutchison Ports' Sydney and Brisbane container terminals, but has rebuffed the FWO's contention that the stevedore should have been awarded $600,000 in damages it didn't seek.
The FWC has held that an agreement negotiated with two train drivers but set to cover an entire transferred workforce on the Roy Hill Pilbara mine network was not genuinely agreed, but it is asking whether this is a minor error that can be dealt with via an undertaking, "odd as that may be".
The FWC has used new legislation permitting it to overlook minor technical or procedural errors in agreements to endorse an enterprise deal with a bargaining notice that failed to comply with the Act's pre-approval requirements.
A full Federal Court has upheld a finding that agreement-sanctioned union stopwork meetings can be freely used to delay and disrupt business as part of a campaign strategy, but has increased fines for the CFMMEU's coercion of head contractor Hutchison by almost 30%.
The FWC has made a bargaining order compelling the AWU to go against the wishes of its members and meet with an oil and gas refiner to negotiate a new agreement.
A Tasmanian wood mill operator that stood down its workforce after this year's bushfires has established that even though its agreement requires workers to be paid for time lost due to such natural events, it does not have to pay them if it is because of bushfire-damaged machinery.
A large pharmaceutical company is obliged to convert labour hire workers to permanent positions after a year's continuous employment, the FWC ruling that the relevant agreement clause was a permitted matter because it promoted job security.
The FWC has made a bargaining order requiring Chemist Warehouse to delay a vote on a proposed enterprise agreement, as an indefinite strike continues at key warehouses in Victoria and Queensland.
Unregistered retail union RAFFWU has today questioned Woolworths' decision to display a bargaining notice on physical noticeboards rather than its electronic or "point of sale" systems, during an FWC hearing into its bid to quash the approval of a new deal and clear the way for a $1 billion backpay claim.
The FWC has halted the dismissal of an air traffic controller who in the space of two months assigned the wrong runway and "lost" separation of aircraft at Sydney Airport, finding that "questions of fact" around the employer's obligation to manage his performance needed to first be settled.
