A full Federal Court has today rejected a bid by the CFMMEU's manufacturing division to overturn the FWC's decision to deny it a ballot of members to win approval to disamalgamate from the broader union.
A judge has thrown out a Bing Lee worker's race and sex discrimination case, saying it demonstrates "the perils of litigating hurt feelings", after she embellished events "which stem predominantly from unremarkable, collegiate 'small talk', and petty workplace disagreements to cast them in a more nefarious light".
As Chevron workers prepare to start industrial action this afternoon and the FWC continues week-long talks to resolve the underlying bargaining dispute for its Wheatstone downstream and Gorgon facilities, the tribunal's president will conduct a preliminary hearing next week of the company's bid for an intractable bargaining declaration for its Wheatstone platform.
The FWC will probe potential "wider-scale abuse" of agreement-making under the Fair Work Act after quashing the approval of a Chevron contractor's labour hire deal made with six "employees" in a sham process "entirely lacking in authenticity and moral authority".
The UFU's Victorian branch says the FWC should issue a groundbreaking intractable bargaining declaration to overcome stalled enterprise agreement negotiations with Fire Services Victoria, but it should not allow a post-declaration bargaining period to "undo and revisit" terms that have already been agreed.
The FWC has offered a worker a week to consider his possible reinstatement, finding that his employer unfairly dismissed him for a low-speed wheelie-bin collision.
A leading labour law academic says the drafting of the Albanese Government's latest swathe of IR changes is "complex" but the reformed approach to defining an employee is "really significant" and new labour hire provisions are likely to prevent employers from evading agreements via outsourcing.
A FWC member has issued the "strongest recommendation" for AMWU members at an Ampol refinery to cease industrial action and vote up a new deal, after expressing her view that she lacked the power to convene a second post-PABO compulsory conciliation conference.
A worker sacked for sleeping on the job will have another shot at getting his job back after a full bench found a senior member failed to put him on notice that he considered reinstatement inappropriate and reached an "unsound" conclusion that the employer had a valid reason.
The Albanese Government's legislative changes to "close the labour hire loophole" will rely on aggrieved parties seeking orders from the FWC to ensure on-hire workers are paid the same rates as those in the host employer's enterprise agreement.
