Following on from its wins at Sydney and Melbourne independent bookstores, RAFFWU is leading strikes and work bans at Berkelouw Books and Harry Hartog, where it says workers remain on a small-cohort 2012 "zombie" agreement that the union says pays "poverty wages" and should never have been approved.
A FWC member has criticised a union's "sneaky" application for a protected action ballot at one of nine interconnected workplaces as potentially "dragg[ing]" members into an industrial campaign "they did not authorise".
In a significant ruling on stand downs, a full bench has upheld a challenge to a hospital's refusal to pay a nurse who declined redeployment to another ward due to a work ban, but found on redetermination that the employer was otherwise entitled to withhold payment.
The NSW Industrial Court has fined the state's nurses and midwives union $130,000 for its "flagrant and unapologetic" flouting of multiple anti-strike orders during pay negotiations with the Minns Government that have since morphed into a major gender undervaluation case.
The TWU is threatening strikes in the cash-in-transit industry in three states - with 99% of Victorian Armaguard workers already voting in favour - arguing its hand has been forced by a lack of progress in pay talks, eight months after the union's novel bid to rope-in the industry's major customers to secure pay rises.
Grave diggers and funeral workers are set to vote on strikes and cremation bans after the FWC rejected claims that no amount of notice will avert "significant consequences", while also backing the AWU's objection to the employer's proposed survey of its workforce to gauge its views.
The FWC has refused a bid for a three-month suspension of industrial action at a major aluminium smelter, finding that it would hinder bargaining, and that the AWU had already made significant concessions to ensure that the plant would remain operational.
The FWC has ordered lift manufacturer Schindler to end an unlawful lockout of more than 200 workers, holding that alerting union delegates to impending "employer response action" did not satisfy a requirement to notify bargaining representatives.
The Federal Court has today ordered Qantas to pay a $90 million fine - including $50 million to the TWU - for the Flying Kangaroo's unlawful outsourcing of the jobs of about 1800 ground handling employees, while it has criticised chief executive Vanessa Hudson for failing to appear to explain the airline's contrition.
The FWC has more than halved the proportion a private operator of Newcastle's public bus network can dock from the pay of drivers who allow passengers to travel fare free during partial work bans.
