The Fair Work Act is "effectively useless" to counter picketing, according to a leading employer-clientele barrister who laments that police often turn "a blind eye" to what would normally be considered criminal conduct, while the High Court's chief justice has canvassed the utility of comparative law in the workplace legal arena.
The Victorian Supreme Court took the "serious step" of imposing a representative order on individuals involved in an unlawful blockade at a Geelong oil refinery early this month, but extending it to encompass future participants would go beyond the terms of any previous such order, according to the judge in the case.
Esso Australia has applied to terminate two important enterprise agreements at its Bass Strait oil and gas operations, becoming the latest big employer to use what one union has dubbed the "sledgehammer approach" to break a bargaining deadlock.
A group of leading IR academics has made a preemptive strike against any attempt to use the Coalition's "freedoms" inquiry to diminish the immunity from common law liability conferred by the Fair Work Act's protected industrial action provisions.
The Productivity Commission in a new report has repeated its call for governments to adopt Victorian-style procurement guidelines to regulate substandard IR conduct in the construction industry, but has warned they might need to be modified to avoid a clash with the Fair Work Act.
