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.
The ACTU is preparing to train affiliates to comply with the more stringent governance requirements under the Turnbull Government's rules for registered organisations, as the new regulator develops plans to increase awareness of protections for reprisals against whistleblowers - which extend to imprisonment.
WorkSafe Victoria is "considering its options" after expressing disappointment at Friday's full Federal Court finding that a CFMEU official needed to have a federal entry permit to assist a health and safety representative when invited onto a Victorian construction site.
A Senate inquiry has recommended an employer who gives a union official a $20 bottle of wine for speaking at a conference be exempted from sanctions in the corrupting benefits legislation that is before the House of Representatives today.
The timetable for having the Registered Organisations Commission up and running appears to have slipped, with a new target adopted for it to be in place by the end of June.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has this afternoon introduced legislation that outlaws payments of "corrupting benefits" to unions and imposes penalties on those who provide or receive such payments.
