The Coalition has largely succeeded in neutralising IR as a 2013 federal election issue by promising to retain – at least for one term – Labor's Fair Work framework, but Australia's two major parties are still going to the September 7 poll with some significant policy differences, including on paid parental leave, right of entry, and construction industry regulation. Workplace Express compares their IR policies and those of the Greens, whose future hold on the Senate balance of power is uncertain.
The Federal Court has found that BHP Coal took unlawful adverse action when it sacked two CFMEU officials for allegedly harassing and bullying a mine worker who had resigned from the union, holding the claims against them weren't made out and the company's actions were "inexplicably harsh".
Fair Work Building and Construction chief executive Leigh Johns has challenged those who say the inspectorate should have intervened in the Grocon Supreme Court proceedings to identify the powers it could have relied upon, while the main players are about to head back for more talks with FWA President, Justice Iain Ross.
Grocon Constructors has shown the Victorian Supreme Court graphic footage of CFMEU protesters pushing back police horses in Melbourne's CBD this morning in its successful bid to extend a ban on union officials coming within 50 metres of the Emporium site.
MUA workers who stopped a vessel on the North West shelf Gorgon project from sailing because of concerns about the status of some crew members' immigration visas might have considered there were good social or community reasons for doing so, but it was still unprotected industrial action, Fair Work Australia has held.
