The MUA has vowed to resist what it claims are "common" efforts by stevedoring companies to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to slash wages and conditions on the waterfront.
In a case of curious timing, the FWC has endorsed a council's mid-pandemic scrapping of an enduring work-from-home arrangement on the basis it fell outside the purview of a flexible work agreement clause.
In a significant decision on agreement-making, an FWC full bench has clarified that the tribunal must reject any undertakings that have a "transformative" effect such that they could have affected workers' votes.
The FWC has let a construction company bin a 5% pay rise that came into effect in February plus next year's increase, despite CFMMEU evidence that some workers felt pressured to support the COVID-19 variation in a ballot that identified their vote.
The FWC has approved the union-opposed termination of a clothing company's enterprise deal after observing it was not an "intellectual stretch" for an employee to correctly cast a vote that would have halted it.
An FWC member has refused to replace an incorrectly-provided draft of a deal with the employee-endorsed final version, finding it should be left to a full bench to consider the employer's "obvious error" in her earlier approval of the agreement.
The FWC has granted the CFMMEU a majority support determination covering Orica's explosives workers at an open cut mine on the basis they are engaged "in connection" with the coal industry.
A Fair Work commissioner has rejected fellow tribunal members' "erroneous" interpretations of an established authority to dismiss a classification dispute commenced under a since-expired deal.
In a matter a judge has speculated could have "wide ramifications" regarding stand-downs, Qantas and Jetstar have won an injunction stopping the FWC from arbitrating a dispute concerning hundreds of engineers rendered idle by the pandemic.
A judge has shot down an ER manager's bid to represent her employer in an adverse action case in which she is accused of criminal behaviour, observing that her own interests might "colour" her ability to effectively perform the role.
