The ACTU has renewed its call to remove or curb employers' ability to lock out their workforces, after a multinational mining company extended to almost three weeks its freeze on mineworkers returning to the job at an Illawarra coal pit.
The MEU says its members at a Peabody underground coal mine near Wollongong have been "blindsided" by the the company's week-long lockout of 160 mineworkers, saying it is a disproportionate response to limited protected action.
ACTU president Michele O'Neil has accused Nippon Paper's Opal subsidiary of abusing its power by locking out about 300 workers from a Latrobe Valley mill for three weeks and counting, after seven CFMEU members took six hours of protected action.
The FWC has panned rail operator Qube for "reneging" on an in-principle enterprise deal with the RTBU, after rejecting the union's bid to terminate industrial action that allegedly presented a threat to community safety and welfare.
The FWC has made it clear that Svitzer's planned national lockout at noon tomorrow now won't proceed, but it will decide tomorrow whether to suspend or terminate the protected action.
A FWC full bench will tomorrow consider whether to terminate or suspend tugboat operator Svitzer's planned indefinite national lockout on Friday, after the company told Vice President Adam Hatcher it is not prepared to delay it and does not believe conciliation will help.
Towage company Svitzer is set to lock out its harbour tugboat workforce, claiming it has been forced into it by continuing disruptive protected action by three maritime unions.
The FWC has expanded on its reasons for rejecting an employer's request to terminate its own lock-out of workers so they could no longer take threatened industrial action, describing the "highly unusual" s424 application as inconsistent with the Fair Work Act's bargaining objectives.
A major plastics manufacturer has this morning applied for the FWC to halt protected action at a plant in Melbourne, where the AWU says the only current action is the employer's lockout of its members.
