Protracted negotiations over oil and gas agreements in the Bass Strait have moved a step closer to arbitration following the Victorian Government's application to terminate bargaining in the face of looming strike action.
A Senate inquiry has urged Public Service Minister Michaelia Cash to intervene in the federal public sector bargaining dispute and soften the "intransigent" Coalition's "brutally hard-line" bargaining policy by relaxing the 2% wages cap and removing the prohibition on backpay, but Government senators have flatly rejected the recommendations.
The Federal Court has refused to suspend penalties against 50 workers who walked out to protest a colleague's sacking, fining each individual up to $1,500 for their unlawful industrial action at ExxonMobil's Longford gas conditioning plant last year.
Together Queensland has failed to bring forward the closing dates of protected action ballots at hospitals across the state after the State IRC found it failed to make a convincing case for a shorter timeframe.
More than 50 construction workers are facing penalties after the Federal Court found they took unlawful strike action when they attended a CFMEU rally at a Perth children's hospital construction site in 2013, but the union says the case is a complete "farce".
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection will put a new offer to its employees in the wake of the Fair Work Commission's decision to terminate industrial action at airports across the country and move towards arbitration of a new agreement.
The FWC terminated protected action at airports because suspension would have provided a "non-permanent conclusion" to the long-running bargaining dispute between the CPSU and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Concrete supplier Boral suffered "substantial losses and damage" from a boycott organised by the Victorian CFMEU because it was a crucial supplier to Grocon, the Federal Court heard today.
The AMWU is pushing for 'site rates' at a big McCains food processing plant in regional Victoria to discourage the spread of contractors and labour hire workers by ensuring they are on the same pay and conditions as employees.
