Union officials can't use their right to enter premises for discussions with members to gather signatures on petitions or "secure a commitment to a particular course of action in the future", the Federal Court has found, ruling in favour of an employer that blocked access for an organiser who sought workers' backing for a majority support determination.
In a significant decision on the nature of work, the FWC has found that the nursing home at the centre of one of Queensland's deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks should have paid employees for the time spent taking rapid antigen tests before the start of their shifts.
A CFMMEU organiser who engaged in threatening and coercive conduct, including stopping a concrete pour, has failed to convince the FWC to renew his entry permit, despite presenting evidence that he had recently completed training on the error of his ways.
A court has today imposed fines of 90% of the maximum on the "rogue" construction union and 80% on its Queensland leader for failing to provide 24 hours notice before officials entered a construction site for bargaining discussions with workers, after the head contractor insisted they be held off-site.
The Federal Court has criticised the ABCC's "misrepresentation" of evidence in pleadings and a media release, concluding the watchdog bore some responsibility for a subsequent report in a national newspaper that wrongly stated that a CFMMEU organiser made a "throat-slitting" gesture to a truck driver.
A judge has walked the fine line between factoring in the CFMMEU's history of legal transgressions and imposing a sanction proportionate to the breach by adding $10,000 to penalties levied on the union after an official blew cigarette smoke in an ER coordinator's face.
The Federal Court has rejected the ABCC's "cynical" view of CFMMEU-commissioned entry rights training for an inexperienced organiser who pushed over a Fulton Hogan manager when pressing to access parts of a Monash Freeway project site in 2017.
The CFMMEU has failed in an interlocutory court bid to enter tunnelling sites at Brisbane's $5 billion Cross River Rail Project, in the midst of a demarcation dispute with the AWU.
The FWC has thrown out a bid by the AMWU to enter the BHP OS training facility near Mackay to hold discussions with about 150 maintenance trainees, finding the union's coverage rule for fitters and engineering trades doesn't extend to the "caterpillar" trainees until they become maintenance associate "butterflies".
