CPSU members in 17 APS agencies are set to begin a campaign of rolling four-hour stoppages next month, as the union seeks to pressure the federal government to increase its sub-inflation pay offers.
The massive $54 billion Gorgon LNG project could gain an assurance of industrial peace for the largest part of its workforce, if workers employed by one of its major contractors accept a new FWC-brokered enterprise deal with fewer working days in each roster cycle.
The Federal Court has reserved its decision in a case in which Esso Australia argues that members of the AWU took unprotected industrial action, which cut its oil and gas production in Bass Strait in March and April.
The Australian Shipowners Association has told the Productivity Commission that it is important to understand that the starting point for the bargaining changes it is seeking is the "disproportionate industrial power" wielded by the maritime unions.
The bids by unions for protected action ballots for workers on the massive Gorgon LNG project are on hold for three weeks, after the FWC intervened to bring parties back to the negotiating table.
Australia's largest rail freight operator, Aurizon, has been ordered to provide the full pro-rata rate of pay to a train driver who was to receive a reduced amount under a compassionate grounds/short-term medical disability clause when she returned part-time from maternity leave.
The Federal Court has ordered the MUA to produce documents, including records of any government lobbying, in the long-running dispute over whether its anti-foreign crewing campaign and not safety was behind industrial action at Chevron's Gorgon project in 2012.
The licenced aircraft engineers' union is urging the "liberalisation" of union coverage rules, saying that if they didn't exist at all, the industrial unrest that fuelled the bargaining battle between the union and Qantas might have been diminished before the airline dramatically shut down its operations and locked out its workforce in 2011.
In a case set aside until the High Court ruled on the Mammoet accommodation dispute, the Fair Work Commission has found that coal mining workers should have been paid their safety and production allowance while they were taking protected action during a bargaining battle.
