The FWBC has discontinued court action against the CFMEU and official Luke Collier over alleged entry breaches at a Sydney apartment development in 2014, conceding its "poor" chance of succeeding after a full Federal Court quashed a similar case.
The CFMEU has launched legal action that alleges the construction watchdog "knowingly or recklessly" distributed incorrect information on union right of entry.
An FWC full bench majority has upheld a decision to refuse a CFMEU organiser an entry permit while noting that the union failed to take up an opportunity to propose conditions.
The CFMEU and five of its officials have been fined $132,000 for "disrespectful" right of entry contraventions at three construction sites in Adelaide in 2014.
The FWC has knocked back an application for orders preventing three union officials entering the Ichthys LNG project, as well as the organisation of combined union meetings on site.
Right of entry permit holders can't hold discussions with employees in the workplace before or after work because it creates "uncertainty" around employee and employers' rights and obligations and increased the likelihood of disputes, the FWC has found.
The FWC has suspended the entry permit of a CFMEU official who behaved in an "aggressive and threatening manner" when he told a project manager at a construction site he wanted to "smash" someone.
The FWC has decried the "normalisation" of a culture of lawlessness within the CFMEU, in decisions refusing two officials' applications for entry permits after they failed the "fit and proper person" test, but granting entry rights to another organiser who allegedly threatened to start a Boral-style "war" against a major construction company.
Fortescue Metals Group has failed in a bid to block the CEPU from seeking a declaration that it unduly delayed entry to its WA branch secretary after a 2013 workplace fatality, with a court finding WA's non-harmonised OHS laws are no barrier to entering sites under the Fair Work Act.
The Turnbull Government is seeking to make a direct link between the Heydon Royal Commission's findings and the ABCC legislation that looks set to be a double-dissolution trigger, but there is no concrete policy connection between the two, according to a leading IR academic.
