The MUA is facing substantial penalties after the Federal Court today found it orchestrated unlawful industrial action at Hutchison's Port Botany and Brisbane container terminals in 2015, unleashing "every tool available" when confronted with "what it perceived to be an existential threat".
In a ruling that underlines the Fair Work Ombudsman's pursuit of accessorial liability against advisors, a court has for the first time imposed a fine on an accountancy firm involved in an employer's underpayments.
The Federal Court has ordered the CFMEU and a delegate to pay almost $100,000 in penalties for the coercion involved when he prevented a subcontractor's employee from working on a job because he wasn't a union member.
The Federal Court has today ordered former ABC Commissioner Nigel Hadgkiss to pay the CFMEU an $8,500 fine for his "wrongdoing" when he breached the law "he was required to police", resulting in the dissemination of "false information" on right of entry.
The High Court has this morning refused a CFMEU bid for special leave to challenge a full Federal Court majority ruling that increased penalties twelve-fold after after accepting that it could not treat a "lawful request" or a party's motivation for taking coercive industrial action as a mitigating factor when determining fines.
The Federal Court has imposed record fines totalling more than $2.4 million against the CFMEU national and NSW branches and nine officials over breaches at Barangaroo in 2014, but says that without "legislative action" even higher penalties currently available under the law might not deter the militant union.
A court has found a husband and wife who performed largely home-based clerical work exclusively for one business before their services were further outsourced were employees rather than contractors because the company had an "undoubted authority to control" the relationship.
A cleaner who invoiced as both a sole trader and a company but claims he was an employee is pursuing Woolworths and three contracting businesses for more than $300,000 in underpaid wages and unpaid overtime, annual leave and superannuation he says he should have been paid between 2004 and 2015.
Twenty-year jail terms for industrial manslaughter and the newly-created role of WHS Prosecutor are among legislative changes contained in a bill introduced to Queensland Parliament yesterday.
