A Senate inquiry has recommended an employer who gives a union official a $20 bottle of wine for speaking at a conference be exempted from sanctions in the corrupting benefits legislation that is before the House of Representatives today.
The Federal Court has today ordered former TWU WA branch secretaries Jim McGiveron and Rick Burton to pay more than $65,000 in penalties, mostly for their roles in purchasing two "luxury utes" for their personal use and arranging a redundancy payment of almost $400,000 to McGiveron.
The new standalone regulator for registered organisations will start operating on Monday, May 1, with its new powers taking effect by the following day.
The timetable for having the Registered Organisations Commission up and running appears to have slipped, with a new target adopted for it to be in place by the end of June.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has this afternoon introduced legislation that outlaws payments of "corrupting benefits" to unions and imposes penalties on those who provide or receive such payments.
The NUW has today asked its former NSW leader Derrick Belan about evidence he gave to the Heydon Royal Commission, as it defends his brother Nick's unfair dismissal claim in the FWC.
The Turnbull Government has confirmed it will make a submission to the Fair Work Commission on how to handle the transition to lower penalty rates in the retail and hospitality sectors.
The AWU kicks off its biennial conference today, with new national secretary Daniel Walton seeking to revive falling membership and protect jobs in key industry segments rather than pursue mergers with other unions. Meanwhile, the FWC has been questioning the "integrity" of the union’s reported membership numbers for the five years to 2014.
