The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has launched a Federal Court bid to fine and disqualify CFMEU manufacturing division national secretary Michael O'Connor as co-chair of First Super for allegedly using its funds to pay the wages of a union employee.
Newly-installed CFMEU construction division administrator Mark Irving KC has told members that "militancy in accordance with the [Fair Work] Act" is not unlawful and that the union will not make political donations or take "positions" at ALP conferences while he is in charge.
A welcome ceremony for new FWC Vice President Mark Gibian has heard he is a polite but "devastating" cross-examiner renowned for his calm court manner, while an employer representative said the Albanese Government has removed from the Bar one of the "sharpest tools unions have in their toolbox".
FWC Deputy President Val Gostencnik is among nine new judges appointed to the Federal Circuit and Family Court from today to increase its capacity to hear protection visa and migration cases.
FWC GM Murray Furlong has applied to the Federal Court today to have four CFMEU construction and general division branches put into administration, while he has left the door open for two more to go the same way.
Justice Ingmar Taylor, the president of the NSW Industrial Court that has been re-established this month by the Minns Labor Government, has told a ceremony to celebrate its rebirth that the recent scrapping of the former government's public sector wages cap reinstates the "broad and unfettered power" to arbitrate disputes bestowed on the institution by the State IR Act's architect, Jeff Shaw.
Long-serving RTBU NSW branch leader Alex Claassens is set to become national secretary following the resignation of Mark Diamond, whom the organisation credits with "transforming" it and resisting Coalition attempts to thwart the union movement.
The FWC has welcomed a new member "honoured" to have worked at a law firm founded in the 1940s by a Communist she considers herself lucky enough to have interviewed in his final years.
