The Federal Court has closed a loophole under which union organisers maintained they could enter sites to discuss safety issues under state OHS laws without showing their federal entry permits.
Ahead of Federal Court hearings into ABCC claims that two CFMMEU officials breached entry laws at a Melbourne freeway project in 2017, the union is suing the head contractor and its IR manager for obstructing their efforts to investigate suspected safety breaches.
A judge has in imposing a penalty on the CFMMEU for a worksite shutdown described as "something of a fiction" any belief that such fines will deter the union from future contraventions.
The FWC has renewed CFMMEU maritime division national secretary Paddy Crumlin's entry permit, but only after closely scrutinising his involvement in two unlawful industrial actions still before the courts.
A court has declined to make a declaration agreed to by an employer for admitted breaches of the Fair Work Act, ruling that its repetition of adverse findings would not "have any educative or deterrent effect. . . at all".
In what is believed to be an Australian-first, the Victorian CFMMEU is seeking penalties of more than $4 million against four police officers and the civil construction giant McConnell Dowell for allegedly stopping union safety officials from inspecting "high-risk work" at a level-crossing removal project.
An employer association has begun probing the alliance between the AWU and the CFMMEU's MUA division that seeks to build membership in the offshore oil and gas sector, arguing that it creates a conflict of the interest for the organisers involved.
A CFMMEU official has retained his entry permit despite being heavily fined for his part in a heated worksite stoush, the FWC finding he was acting on "genuine but mistaken" legal advice about his rights.
CFMMEU official Joe Myles has been hit with his second personal payment order in four months, the Federal Court today fining him $44,000 for a series of threats and actions over an unfavoured subcontractor working on a level crossing site in 2013 and 2014.
