Employers and workers experienced in bargaining still misunderstand key concepts, and their knowledge gaps contribute to unrealistic expectations on both sides that constrain effective negotiations, new FWC-commissioned research has found.
The ASU has won a supported bargaining authorisation to bolster negotiations with the ACT Government for a multi-enterprise deal for social and community services workers employed by 17 funding-reliant organisations.
The CFMEU construction division's Queensland branch has suffered multiple setbacks in its bargaining stoush with the head contractor of the state's $7 billion Cross River Rail project, with workers voting up a new deal put directly by the company and the FWC separately issuing two orders stopping unprotected industrial action.
A notable difference between the federal legislation putting the CFMEU's construction division into administration and the FWC general manager's court application is that the former takes control of all state and territory branches, according to labour law academic Anthony Forsyth.
A FWC member has found no plausible reason for a boilermaker's co-workers and managers to conspire to have him sacked for allegedly drawing a p-nis on a client's fuel tanker, concluding that the more likely explanation lay in a colleague's suggestion that he simply had a "brain fart".
Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt has this morning introduced legislation empowering him to put the CFMEU's construction and general division and its branches in the hands of an administrator.
An IR legal expert predicts the Federal Court case seeking to put the CFMEU construction division's national office and four branches into administration will not be required if federal legislation to be introduced this week mirrors a NSW bill.
The FWC has declined to order a worker to stop s-xually harassing a colleague after accepting he regretted his "inappropriate" remark and that the employer would reduce future interaction between the two employees "as much as possible".
NSW IR Minister Sophie Cotsis has told Parliament a bill to place the CFMEU construction and general division's State branch into administration for five years "strikes the balance" between not interfering in unions' important role and stamping out "corruption and gross misconduct".
The High Court has granted the ACCC special leave to challenge the full Federal Court's quashing of a finding that the CFMEU's construction division induced and had knowing involvement in major building company J Hutchinson's unlawful boycott of a non-union waterproofing subcontractor.
