AWU production operators have voted today to authorise industrial action, which will clear the way for port-wide strikes at BHP's Port Hedland operations, ahead of the next bargaining meeting tomorrow.
The FWC has confirmed an electrical contractor's pursuit of a multi-employer deal does not displace its obligation to negotiate a single enterprise agreement sought by the ETU, granting the union a PABO after finding the company breached good faith obligations.
The UWU has won a protected action ballot order despite an employer's intention to unilaterally put a proposed deal to a vote, and its insistence that the bargaining parties already agreed to it in-principle.
Unions have today sought authorisation to strike at BHP's iron ore export operations at Port Hedland, after claiming to have been "stonewalled" during bargaining for new deals.
The prospect of the first lawful strikes in more than 25 years at BHP's Iron Ore mines has moved closer, after ETU members on a crucial Pilbara power network voted up a protected action ballot.
BHP says it has contingency plans in place to ensure continuity of power supply to its Pilbara mines and ports, as 60 workers who operate its remote electricity grid threaten what it says is its WA iron ore operation's first protected action this century.
An emergency care flight service has withdrawn objections to an ANMF protected action ballot of nurses and midwives, and the FWC has found no reason to block it, after the union inserted a caveat to protect patient safety.
Following on from its wins at Sydney and Melbourne independent bookstores, RAFFWU is leading strikes and work bans at Berkelouw Books and Harry Hartog, where it says workers remain on a small-cohort 2012 "zombie" agreement that the union says pays "poverty wages" and should never have been approved.
The FWC has announced a first-of-its-kind review of protected action ballot agents approved under Secure Jobs legislation, revealing that one has captured more than a third of the market.
The TWU is threatening strikes in the cash-in-transit industry in three states - with 99% of Victorian Armaguard workers already voting in favour - arguing its hand has been forced by a lack of progress in pay talks, eight months after the union's novel bid to rope-in the industry's major customers to secure pay rises.
