Unfair to ask HR manager to represent company: FWC; SDA secretary's lengthy tenure extended; Labor pledge to slash government spending on external workers.
The HSU's efforts to rebuild after a series of scandals appear to be gaining traction, with the union confirming almost all state branch leadership positions will be returned unopposed except for SA, where members are challenging its entire management committee.
The Federal Court has heard that "another agency" is now involved in the Federal Police investigation into media leaks about last year's raids on the AWU's offices.
The Registered Organisations Commission is seeking information from the HSU's Victorian No 1 branch, in response to what is alleged to be a protected disclosure from a whistleblower.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus has today mounted a spirited defence of solidarity among union members, saying that calling a strikebreaker a "scab" is "an accurate description", while the peak body's new president said she experienced the power of unions when as 14-year-old waitress, members helped her fight back against sexual harassment by a supervisor.
The NTEU's newly-elected national secretary Matthew McGowan and president Alison Barnes are calling on members to make their team complete by electing current WA secretary Gabe Gooding to the national assistant secretary position.
Former NUW NSW branch secretary Derrick Belan has been sentenced to four years' jail on 60 charges that involved more than $650,000 of union funds, including personal spending on a tattoo, Botox treatments, holidays and a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
The FWC has tossed out for want of jurisdiction an "unprecedented" pay dispute lodged by sacked FAAA national division secretary Andrew Staniforth against Qantas to correct overpayments, with a senior deputy president stating he has never encountered a "stranger industrial proposition".
The Registered Organisations Commission has initiated a prosecution of the AWU's Victorian branch and its former secretary, Cesar Melhem, for allegedly failing to remove 2,000 unfinancial members from the books over a five-year period through to 2013.
