The ballots of MUA and TCFU members to determine whether they support amalgamation with the CFMEU closed today with a high turnout for an internal union vote.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said last night that she made an offer to the Opposition to split-off into a separate Bill elements of the "four-yearly review" legislation that enable the FWC to overlook technical and minor errors in agreements, after tribunal president Iain Ross twice wrote asking her to urgently secure its passage.
The Federal Court has tossed out a challenge to an FWC full bench decision, describing confidence in the administration of justice as a "significant factor" in finding Energy Australia's case an abuse of process.
The Turnbull Government is poised to introduce legislation to force greater disclosure from union-related funds including redundancy funds, which have about $2 billion in assets.
The Queensland Government will push for Australia's first State industrial manslaughter laws to go national at next year's review of the model OHS laws, IR Minister Grace Grace's office has confirmed.
Coalition senators, in a new Senate inquiry report, have rejected concerns about the "ensuring integrity" bill that introduces a public interest test for union mergers, while minority Labor and Greens senators have dismissed the legislation as "politically-driven" and "politically-motivated".
The Department of Employment has told a Senate inquiry that it didn't consult unions on the "ensuring integrity" legislation until just two days before its introduction to Parliament.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus told a hearing in Melbourne today that the Federal Government’s "ensuring integrity" legislation would impose harsher standards and punishments on unions and their officials than the Corporations Act does to employers.
The Coalition's legislation that would raise maximum fines from $750.000 to $10 million for secondary boycotts is no certainty to become law after Nick Xenophon Team senators joined the Greens and Labor to declare it would not support it.
