Victoria Police assistant commissioner Stephen Fontana, under cross-examination in the Heydon Royal Commission this afternoon, has retracted his claim that CFMEU construction and general division officials are members of outlaw motorcycle gangs.
The Fair Work Commission has urged employers to focus tightly on errant employees' main areas of misconduct and to avoid a "scattergun" approach when they are considering disciplinary action or dismissal.
The Victorian Supreme Court has confirmed that the tort of intimidation is part of Australia's common law, rejecting the CFMEU's belated bid to set aside a judgment against it for banning Boral entities' supplies to Melbourne building sites.
A former CFMEU construction and general division organiser has told the Heydon Royal Commission this afternoon that one of the inquiry's witnesses pulled a gun on him when he entered a construction site to complain about safety standards.
Even a wharfie can swear too much, according to the Fair Work Commission, which has drawn a distinction between "everyday descriptive language" and swearing "aggressively and maliciously" at someone, in upholding the sacking of a WA employee.
The Fair Work Commission has rejected a bid by a self-nominated employee bargaining representative to split a workforce that was previously covered by a single agreement in two, finding his majority support application didn't meet the "fairly chosen" test.
A Toll employee who intimidated a drug and alcohol testing technician and maintained he was medically unfit to attend meetings with management about his behaviour was validly dismissed, the Fair Work Commission has found.
The impact on public sector bargaining of the implied constitutional limitation on Commonwealth interference with state governments is still not well enough understood, according to long-serving CPSU Victoria secretary Karen Batt.
In a rare consent arbitration under the Fair Work Commission's bargaining assistance provisions, the tribunal has awarded oil refinery workers who accepted a pay freeze for the first two years of their four-year agreement increases only "moderately in excess of CPI" for the remainder of the deal's term.
