Industrial action/disputes page 55 of 81

Workers at strategic navy shipbuilder ASC Pty Ltd have endorsed taking legally-protected industrial action in coming weeks, with the aim of winning exemption from the Turnbull Government's broader bargaining policy.

The Fair Work Commission has issued a three week stop order preventing workers at a South Australian logistics provider from engaging in unlawful industrial action in support of a worker it allegedly sacked for taking too much time off work after a cancer diagnosis.

Together Queensland has failed to bring forward the closing dates of protected action ballots at hospitals across the state after the State IRC found it failed to make a convincing case for a shorter timeframe.

The FWC will next week move towards making a workplace determination for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection after employees this week voted overwhelmingly to reject the department's third bargaining offer.

More than 50 construction workers are facing penalties after the Federal Court found they took unlawful strike action when they attended a CFMEU rally at a Perth children's hospital construction site in 2013, but the union says the case is a complete "farce".

The CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch spent $13.1 million on legal costs in the 12 months to the end of last year, up more than five-fold from $2.3 million in 2014.

The Fair Work Act is "effectively useless" to counter picketing, according to a leading employer-clientele barrister who laments that police often turn "a blind eye" to what would normally be considered criminal conduct, while the High Court's chief justice has canvassed the utility of comparative law in the workplace legal arena.

The Victorian Supreme Court took the "serious step" of imposing a representative order on individuals involved in an unlawful blockade at a Geelong oil refinery early this month, but extending it to encompass future participants would go beyond the terms of any previous such order, according to the judge in the case.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection will put a new offer to its employees in the wake of the Fair Work Commission's decision to terminate industrial action at airports across the country and move towards arbitration of a new agreement.

Despite securing almost $2 million in penalties against non-compliant players in the construction industry over 12 months, the FWBC's director says that it is losing the fight to restore law and order on building sites.