A key independent senator says he will not support the Morrison Government's legislation to make it easier to deregister unions, introduce a public interest test for mergers and ban law-breaking officials, instead calling for a strong response to the finance scandals exposed at the Hayne Royal Commission.
An inquiry into an Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation election that opened before the FWC finalised changes to the union's rules has left it behind schedule and unable to recoup $70,000 in costs after "well and truly" blowing its legal budget.
A Federal Court judge has evoked the memory of the BLF's deregistration in the course of handing out maximum fines to the CFMMEU for "deplorable" breaches by a past State branch president, suggesting that any organisation that fails to rein in aberrant behaviour "cannot expect to remain registered in its existing form".
The union leading the campaign against prospective job losses at a major brewery is at risk of being sidelined after the FWC found it "reached the line between [unacceptably careless disregard] and. . . deliberate non-compliance" in failing to communicate restraining notices to members.
The Registered Organisations Commission is seeking information from the HSU's Victorian No 1 branch, in response to what is alleged to be a protected disclosure from a whistleblower.
The AWU is seeking to change the rules governing the way it counts members after belatedly lodging membership figures of 69,786 as of December 2017 – a drop of 17,420, or 20%, from the figure reported a year earlier – following an external audit conducted at the urging of the ROC.
As union calls for the ROC's abolition have intensified in the wake of its raids on AWU offices, the watchdog's leadership maintains that behind the scenes there is increasing collaboration over a shared quest to protect members' interests.
The NT Master Builders Association is citing a "heavy compliance burden" for seeking to cancel its status as a registered organisation and shift to a corporate structure, a move the Registered Organisations Commission says is now "very unusual".
A full Federal Court has today ushered in a new age in which union officials are held personally liable for breaching IR laws, ordering a CFMMEU organiser to pay almost $20,000 from his own pocket for his role in disrupting work at a construction site in 2013.
