The UK's Starmer Labour Government has committed to introducing legislation within its first 100 days that will outlaw zero-hours contracts and give workers unfair dismissal protections from their first day on the job, King Charles has declared in his speech setting out the new administration's goals.
The FWC has reinstated a long-serving worker accused of violent threats to a colleague, finding the employer's circumstantial evidence fell short and did not establish that the incident occurred.
Leading IR legal expert Anthony Forsyth says whoever is appointed administrator of the CFMEU's construction and general division branches will face a "very onerous task" in exercising their powers, while rebuilding the union will take years.
A five-member FWC full bench has wound up its "targeted" review of modern awards with a report acknowledging that while a "lack of consensus" meant it could not determine key issues, it will now kickstart consideration of six "priority" matters that include simplifying the retail award, developing a working-from-home term in the clerks award and reviewing fixed-term contract provisions in higher education awards.
The ACTU told its employees yesterday they should work from home due to the prospect of protest rallies by supporters of the CFMEU's construction and general division.
The Labor Party's national executive has this afternoon resolved to indefinitely suspend the CFMEU construction and general division's affiliations with the NSW, Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian branches of the party and to refuse political donations from them.
The FWO will investigate whether the CFMEU's construction and general division's making of agreements has been infected by adverse action, coercion, misrepresentation or other unlawful conduct, after a request from Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke.
ACTU leader Sally McManus estimates it will be "years" before the CFMEU's construction and general division rejoins the union peak body, while revealing that former Victorian branch secretary John Setka "hates my guts" and that confidantes have expressed concern for her safety after allegations of organised crime's widespread involvement in the industry.
The FWC has granted extra time for a worker to challenge a dismissal she alleges came about while she underwent intensive cancer treatment, with no notification other than a request to hand over her work on her employer's WeChat group chat.
The ACTU executive has voted overwhelmingly to suspend the CFMEU construction and general division's membership of the peak body in the wake of allegations of criminality, while supporting the Federal Government's push to install an independent administrator in all but two of the division's branches around the country.
