A full Federal Court has largely dismissed the CFMMEU's broad-ranging appeal against more than $300,000 in fines imposed for attempting to force a contractor into signing a union-approved deal, agreeing only that publication orders served no purpose and that too much was made of an "eenie meenie miney mo!" text message.
The CEPU has been fined $445,000 for historic reporting breaches, a Federal Court judge observing that the penalty would have been higher had the union not moved to clean up its act by employing a compliance officer.
Victorian State Labor MP and former AWU leader Cesar Melhem has agreed to admit eight civil breaches of the law covering union memberships, avoiding a scheduled 12-day trial due to begin tomorrow in the Federal Court.
In a novel claim accusing the CFMMEU's maritime division of breaching intellectual property and consumer laws during negotiations for Manly Fast Ferry workers, the NRMA is suing the union for significant damages allegedly caused by using its logo in campaign material.
The NSW IRC has decried an HSU state branch's "adversarial" approach in refusing to award costs against an industrial officer who sought a review of a regulator's decision scrapping improvement notices that claimed union employees might be exposed to "psychological hazards".
