ACTU president Michele O'Neil has accused Nippon Paper's Opal subsidiary of abusing its power by locking out about 300 workers from a Latrobe Valley mill for three weeks and counting, after seven CFMEU members took six hours of protected action.
Air-conditioning industry employers have continued to queue to be included in a pioneering private sector single-interest agreement cast by the AMWU as a response to "dodgy", low-paid contract work.
A former organiser who claims the UWU sacked her for exacerbating post-amalgamation "tensions" by pushing for a staff agreement has won a three-month extension to file her second unfair dismissal application, after a full bench found her first one barred as she lodged it while pursuing an adverse action case.
Industrial action is continuing at Maurice Blackburn after the ASU rejected the firm's latest "inadequate" pay offer, while the recently voted up agreement for rival plaintiff law firm Slater and Gordon lifts pay by 10.9% for workers, including early-career lawyers.
Victoria Police and the Police Association have until close of business today to accept a peace deal brokered by the FWC that boosts wages by 5% a year for general duties officers and 4.5% for others.
A full Federal Court has quashed a first-of-its-kind FWC full bench majority finding that the tribunal has the power to make a workplace determination on contested bargaining matters after an agreement has already won approval.
In a significant judgment on the statutory nature of a "proposed enterprise agreement", a Federal Court has rejected arguments that rail unions lost protection of their industrial action once the bargaining focus changed from a single to a multi-employer deal.
Ahead of a full bench hearing next month, the ACTU says the FWC should grant the SDA's landmark supported bargaining application because it meets the key "common interests" prerequisite, while McDonald's argues that its franchisees don't meet the criteria.
The FWC's edginess over small-cohort deals has come to the fore again after a member exercised his discretion to allow unions to insert themselves in the approval process for an agreement voted up by three workers, despite having no standing as bargaining representatives.
Unprotected industrial action undermines collective negotiations because it is "directly contrary" to the Fair Work Act's bargaining regime, Deputy President Gerard Boyce has held in his reasons for finding the UWU's "unlawful" picketing of Woolworths distribution centres breached its good faith bargaining obligations.
