The FWC will tomorrow hear BHP's bid to break a bargaining deadlock at its crucial Port Hedland operations, ahead of unions staging an eight-hour strike on Thursday the miner claims could cost it more than $100 million. Update: This article has been updated to reflect the FWC bringing forward the conference to tomorrow.
A senior FWC member has affirmed that the statutory focus when considering whether "exceptional" circumstances exist to justify more notice for strikes is not on an employer's operations but on the proposed industrial action itself, rejecting Sydney's driverless train network's plea for extra warning.
AWU production operators have voted today to authorise industrial action, which will clear the way for port-wide strikes at BHP's Port Hedland operations, ahead of the next bargaining meeting tomorrow.
Peabody says it has called off a lockout of workers at the United Wambo Washery but the MEU claims it is effectively continuing as the company has told members it cannot accept their work if they continue to ban certain tasks.
The UWU has won a protected action ballot order despite an employer's intention to unilaterally put a proposed deal to a vote, and its insistence that the bargaining parties already agreed to it in-principle.
The FWC has refused to halt Inpex employees' industrial action, finding that the $15 to $22 million daily cost of a shutdown would not significantly damage the economy, or risk the safety of the Northern Territory population.
NT Corrections has for the third time failed to halt prison officer strikes, with the FWC finding that the industrial action is protected and the UWU has complied with its assurances that it would protect the safety of prisoners.
Inpex is seeking FWC intervention to stop industrial action that it claims is threatening the national and NT economies, the LNG export industry and the health and safety of local gas customers.
Unions have today sought authorisation to strike at BHP's iron ore export operations at Port Hedland, after claiming to have been "stonewalled" during bargaining for new deals.
