Employers opposing the merger of the CFMEU, MUA and TCFU have warned the FWC that the unions would use their combined might to cripple the resource and construction industries, but they argue that in any case more than 45 pending penalty proceedings should legally disqualify them from amalgamating.
An FWC full bench has refused the CEPU leave to appeal a ROC decision on financial reporting deadlines, holding that the "real purpose" of the union's case was to avoid potential penalties for failing to meet its statutory obligations.
The Turnbull Government has listed two contested IR Bills for the debate in the Senate next week, setting it at odds with union calls to hold back controversial legislation until the citizenship status of MPs is clarified.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says one of her staffers has resigned after admitting he leaked information to the media about the AFP raids on the AWU yesterday.
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 ACTU has taken aim at the proposed public interest test for union amalgamations, saying there is no basis for the Turnbull Government's claim that it is the equivalent of the competition test for corporate mergers.
An FWC full bench is today hearing a challenge to a Registered Organisations Commission ruling that Queensland's Together union breached the registered organisations regulations, exposing it to penalties, when its leader made a "considered decision" to delay lodgement of election information.
