Confirming this afternoon that he will run against ACTU secretary Dave Oliver at the peak body's May Congress, assistant secretary Tim Lyons said that unions needed to stop defining themselves by what they opposed and become the champion of the nation's working people.
The Federal Court has thrown out a challenge by Victorian HSU leaders to the Fair Work Commission's inquiry into allegations that the union rorted the right of entry permit system.
In a move that the government has dismissed as a political stunt, the ACTU has told Employment Minister Eric Abetz he should suspend his IR legislative agenda for at least a year to enable the Heydon trade union inquiry and the Productivity Commission Fair Work Act review to run their course.
The secretary of the HSU's Victoria No 1 branch, Diana Asmar, has been returned with a resounding majority, but still faces scrutiny over the branch's alleged failure to follow procedures for issuing entry permits to organisers.
A sacked CFMEU (construction and general division) elected organiser has lodged an unfair dismissal claim with the Fair Work Commission and is taking the matter to the union's national executive.
Former HSU leader Craig Thomson has been warned that his three-month jail sentence could be extended if he fails in his appeal against convictions for 65 counts of theft and obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
The HSU has today resolved to provide Victoria Police with evidence that national secretary Kathy Jackson has wrongly spent more than $900,000 of the union's funds on non-union business, while TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon has referred allegations that former WA officials misappropriated $300,000, to both the FWC and the Heydon Royal Commission.
Independent Contractors Australia has challenged an ACCC ruling allowing the TWU to collectively bargain on behalf of a group of owner drivers engaged by Toll.
In a wide-ranging attack on the Heydon Royal Commission, ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons has dubbed it as part of a conservative agenda to restrict "organising, industrial action, right of entry, public campaigning, political action and expenditure, litigation, access to arbitration and the right to be self-governing".
