In a decision that potentially exposes holes in the former Howard Government's repealed building industry legislation, the Federal Court has held that CFMEU construction and general division organisers did not breach it when it blocked a Grocon truck driver from delivering a crane to a Melbourne site.
In a consent arbitration of a general protections claim, a Fair Work Commission full bench has ruled that a car dealer dismissed an employee because a downturn in business made his supervisory position redundant and not because he made a worker's compensation claim.
A marine captain engaged in a deliberate strategy to disguise Fijian employees as trainees to avoid paying them their award entitlements, the Federal Court has ruled.
A four-hour stoppage by Port Hedland tugboat crew in March 2012 has culminated in the MUA's WA Branch and BHP Billiton agreeing that the union will pay the company $1 million if unlawful industrial action affects the resource giant's Port Hedland operations over the next six years.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's secondary boycott case against the CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch has been set down for a six-week trial in September next year.
In a rare win for beleaguered former HSU national secretary Craig Thomson, the Victorian County Court has today thrown out 80% of his convictions for unauthorised expenditure of union funds, noting the irrelevance in a court of law of whether he spent the money in "a brothel or Bunnings".
The Fair Work Commission is set to conduct a 12–month trial to weed out appeals that have little chance of success, in a regime similar to the High Court's "special leave" system.
The Federal Court has found a childcare centre breached federal adverse action laws by sacking a worker for recruiting union members during an industrial campaign, rejecting its claim it dismissed her for reasons including bullying and harassing a colleague who wouldn't join up.
Western Australian Supreme Court judge James Edelman will fill the Federal Court vacancy left by Justice Peter Jacobson's retirement, while the Federal Government has also appointed four new Federal Circuit Court judges.
