Rail unions are urgently seeking renewed authorisation for festive season protected action at Sydney Trains and NSW Trains, after the Federal Court last night acceded to the employers' bid to temporarily declare unlawful bans to take effect this morning.
The AFP has failed to convince the FWC that the Australian Federal Police Association's "cursory" approach to providing a list of officers who wanted to continue wearing their "accoutrements and radios" while on strike at airports meant the industrial action was unprotected and should therefore be stopped.
Transgrid, the privately-owned operator of the NSW high-voltage electricity network, has won a three-week suspension of protected bans on work defined as a declared incident or emergency.
The FWC has found two types of proposed industrial action against an employer unlawful because they lack specificity, but has also labelled the company "disingenuous" for objecting to the original PABO, withdrawing its concerns and then re-ventilating them a month later.
In a signal to employers that they must have systems in place to ensure they promptly provide information the FWC requires to launch a protected action ballot, the Federal Court has imposed a substantial fine on waste giant Cleanaway for a short delay in the "time-critical" process, while warning that in more egregious cases larger penalties would be warranted.
A construction company has failed in its bid to stop potential strikes amid claims of union interference in the protected action ballot process, the FWC pointing out that it cannot make orders preventing industrial action yet to be endorsed or notified.
The FWC has urged the Defence Department to send "an authorised and properly instructed representative" to deadlocked bargaining negotiations at the Australian Submarine Corporation.
An employer is opposing a CFMEU request to have the FWC hold a joint post-PABO compulsory conciliation conference relating to two separate deals for its workers on the Cross River Rail project in South-East Queensland.
Australian Federal Police Association members have endorsed taking 36 types of protected industrial action - including indefinite or periodic bans on attending Federal politicians' functions or events that do not carry a "significant" threat rating or higher - in pursuit of pay rises that break the shackles of the Albanese Government's 11.2% over three years public sector pay deal.
A senior FWC member has granted unions a protected action ballot period of eight working days despite an employer's claim his decision in Nilsen established a 10-day minimum for electronic voting, and its concerns a shorter timeframe will hamper preparations for the s448A compulsory conference.
