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.
The FWC has reinstated a senior clinician fired for making "ill-advised" jokes about her hospital director in email exchanges with her supervisor, after finding "the punishment did not fit the crime".
The CFMEU says the construction watchdog prosecuted its national secretary, Michael O'Connor, on the basis of flimsy evidence, in an effort to politically embarrass his brother, shadow workplace relations minister Brendan O'Connor.
A mass meeting of Victorian CFMEU members in Melbourne has today unanimously endorsed a new three-year pattern agreement that provides annual pay rises of 5% over three years.
The FWC has rejected bullying allegations against Essential Energy's chief executive officer, but has ordered the company to accept voluntary redundancy applications from two employees who brought the anti-bullying claim because the cost of keeping them on the books when there is no meaningful work is "irrational, absurd and ridiculous".
