The FWC has backed aluminium giant Alcoa's right under its new uniform policy to bar two employees at its WA alumina mines who are also AWU delegates from wearing shirts that bear the union's logo in the workplace.
A straddle driver who lost his job as a result of an automation-driven restructure at Patrick Stevedores' Port Botany container terminal has won his job back after the FWC ruled his dismissal was not a genuine redundancy.
An FWC full bench has confirmed that the Rail Tram and Bus Union is not entitled to represent the industrial interests of members covered by a new agreement for the maintenance contractor serving Fortescue Metals Group's rail operations in the Pilbara.
The Federal Court has found that the CFMEU unlawfully coerced construction joint venturers when it threatened to take industrial action on a "national scale" and bring about "Armageddon" if they sought to enforce an anti-strike order.
The FWC has decried the "normalisation" of a culture of lawlessness within the CFMEU, in decisions refusing two officials' applications for entry permits after they failed the "fit and proper person" test, but granting entry rights to another organiser who allegedly threatened to start a Boral-style "war" against a major construction company.
Unions will push for a legislated "no reduction principle" for penalty rates, in contrast to the Labor policy stance of having them decided by the Fair Work Commission.
Fortescue Metals Group has failed in a bid to block the CEPU from seeking a declaration that it unduly delayed entry to its WA branch secretary after a 2013 workplace fatality, with a court finding WA's non-harmonised OHS laws are no barrier to entering sites under the Fair Work Act.
