The MUA pushed ahead with a 24-hour strike at Tidewater Marine today, ahead of the broader dispute over bargaining in the offshore oil and gas service sector heading back to the Fair Work Commission.
The Federal Court has endorsed an agreement for the MUA and two of its Sydney Branch officials to pay $41,000 in penalties to stevedores DP World for unlawful industrial action the union took in response to the company's plans to dismiss an employee who had been on long term leave.
The FWBC has included CFMEU construction and general division national secretary Dave Noonan in its fourth prosecution over the $1.2 billion Perth Children's Hospital project.
The construction watchdog says it pursuing action against 25 building workers who owe penalties of $135,625 dating from unlawful industrial action on the North-West shelf gas project in 2008.
The Fair Work Commission's decision to temporarily halt a planned 48-hour strike at Tidewater Marine took into account that an MUA official was unavailable to give evidence in person to the tribunal.
The Fair Work Commission has issued an interim order to prevent a planned 48-hour strike by MUA members employed in the offshore oil and gas industry by Tidewater Marine.
BHP Billiton has stepped up pressure over a bargaining deadlock involving tug boat crews in Port Hedland, warning it is “actively pursuing” legal options to prevent industrial action.
The need for employers to consider the individual circumstances of employees taking industrial action before they institute disciplinary action has been demonstrated in a FWC finding that a company unfairly dismissed a crane driver who belatedly joined an unlawful stop-work meeting.
A senior IR lawyer has told the HR Nicholls Society the Fair Work Act should be amended to ban protected industrial action that has serious consequences and to remove entirely the rights of high income earners to strike, in a presentation predicting the decline of the MUA's power and influence.
The FWBC has lodged new Federal Court action alleging coercion by the CFMEU's WA construction branch and officials at the $1.2 billion New Children's Hospital project in Perth last year, its third prosecution relating to the site.
