Hundreds of construction workers today protested at a site in Melbourne over an alleged assault on two CFMMEU officials that has attracted the interest of the ABCC.
A CFMMEU official who had already clocked almost $40,000 in penalties for entry breaches has today landed a $10,000 personal payment order for entering a site to exercise an OHS right, just a month after surrendering his permit.
A court has penalised an early learning centre that refused on the basis of an alleged threat to its workers' "health and wellbeing" to allow a union organiser use its staff room to hold discussions, directing her instead to a storage room.
A senior FWC member has rebutted ABCC arguments that entry permit holders should not be "rewarded" for exercising their rights without incident, observing in the course of a renewal application that such behaviour simply be accorded "appropriate weight" when applying the 'fit and proper person' test.
The ABCC, in opposing entry permits for CFMMEU maritime division leaders, is relying on the view that they fall within its jurisdiction because they are officials of a "building association".
The FWC has taken the rare step of revoking the entry permit of a CFMMEU official who aggressively swore at a subcontractor at a road construction site before asking if he was going to use the hammer he was carrying "to smash me".
The FWC has refused to renew MUA Sydney branch secretary Paul McAleer's entry permit, ruling that he has "repeatedly preferred the interests of his union and/or its members over compliance with industrial laws."
The Federal Court has closed a loophole under which union organisers maintained they could enter sites to discuss safety issues under state OHS laws without showing their federal entry permits.
A judge has in imposing a penalty on the CFMMEU for a worksite shutdown described as "something of a fiction" any belief that such fines will deter the union from future contraventions.
The FWC has renewed CFMMEU maritime division national secretary Paddy Crumlin's entry permit, but only after closely scrutinising his involvement in two unlawful industrial actions still before the courts.
