The High Court has this morning refused a CFMEU bid for special leave to challenge a full Federal Court majority ruling that increased penalties twelve-fold after after accepting that it could not treat a "lawful request" or a party's motivation for taking coercive industrial action as a mitigating factor when determining fines.
In the first test of whether Queensland's laws regulating peaceful assemblies can be used to block pickets and protests during industrial disputes, the state's Supreme Court has rejected mining company Glencore's argument that such activities can't be authorised.
The FWC has implored a barrister to urge his client to "at least consider" engaging with employees, after conceding it has no jurisdiction to deal with a dispute over a "double standard" on redundancy packages between blue and white-collar workers.
The High Court has reserved its decision on parallel appeals by Esso and the AWU questioning what constitutes a breach of bargaining orders and whether a breach during bargaining means future protected action is not possible.
A full Federal Court has fined the CFMEU $300,000 and the CEPU $130,000 over a 2011 industrial campaign; penalties that are almost three times higher than originally sought by the construction watchdog.
The FWC has temporarily restrained a union from taking industrial action after accepting it was not genuinely seeking an agreement when a delegate made the "somewhat unusual" suggestion that the company shift its workers to a labour supply or contracting arrangement managed by him.
A casual pizza delivery worker who lost a "driver of the year" competition has failed in her bid to overturn the result and pocket $15,000 prize money after the FWC found it would be a "bizarre and entirely inappropriate outcome" and that in any case it had no power to hear the case.
The Federal Court has found CFMEU construction and general division NSW branch secretary Brian Parker intended to coerce construction giant Lend Lease to reinstate a delegate when he organised for 700 workers to walk off the major Barangaroo South job three years ago.
The FWC has refused to issue orders to suppress the identity of individuals involved in a heated dispute over "illicit" posts on Facebook and other websites.
An FWC full bench has lifted confidentiality orders on a fiery dispute between the UFU and Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Board over a firefighter's allegedly offensive Facebook comments, finding that parties to the dispute must accept the consequences of open justice regardless of any embarrassment that might ensue.
