The FWC has become overly focussed on verifying workers' eligibility for flexible work requests by imposing onerous evidentiary requirements on them, which has limited the effectiveness of its new dispute power, a researcher has told the review panel in her response to its Secure Jobs, Better Pay draft report.
The FWC has today refused to make a s418 anti-strike order against the RTBU, after finding a "distinct lack of evidence" that it organised a covert campaign to encourage train crew to take sick leave "en masse" that has led to serious disruption of the large parts of the Sydney passenger rail network.
The NSW Government's urgent tandem bid today to pause industrial action that is causing chaos across the Sydney train network will be heard by the FWC in two expedited hearings tomorrow and on Wednesday, while President Adam Hatcher has recommended that unions suspend industrial action to aid a possible resolution.
ACTU president Michele O'Neil has accused Nippon Paper's Opal subsidiary of abusing its power by locking out about 300 workers from a Latrobe Valley mill for three weeks and counting, after seven CFMEU members took six hours of protected action.
In a significant judgment on the statutory nature of a "proposed enterprise agreement", a Federal Court has rejected arguments that rail unions lost protection of their industrial action once the bargaining focus changed from a single to a multi-employer deal.
Qantas will pay $120 million into a fund to compensate about 1800 former ground handling workers for economic and non-economic loss they suffered as a result of the airline's unlawful outsourcing their jobs during the pandemic, though it is not yet clear how much each individual might receive or how this is to be determined.
Unprotected industrial action undermines collective negotiations because it is "directly contrary" to the Fair Work Act's bargaining regime, Deputy President Gerard Boyce has held in his reasons for finding the UWU's "unlawful" picketing of Woolworths distribution centres breached its good faith bargaining obligations.
The FWC has refused an employer's application to stop allegedly unprotected action, finding that two off-duty employees' distribution of campaign materials did not amount to industrial action because it did not alter their performance of work, or disrupt other workers.
In a decision tackling an overlooked need to issue protected action ballot orders reflecting a shift to multi-employer bargaining at Sydney Trains and NSW Trains, the FWC has chastised the employers for seeking an additional technical step serving "no purpose" other than to bring about a delay.
Rail unions are urgently seeking renewed authorisation for festive season protected action at Sydney Trains and NSW Trains, after the Federal Court last night acceded to the employers' bid to temporarily declare unlawful bans to take effect this morning.
