Coates Hire has lodged a challenge to an FWA ruling that it breached good faith bargaining obligations when it directly offered to backpay workers a 4.5% increase if they voted up a four-year deal it put to them after negotiations with unions broke down, largely over an opt-out clause.
The Federal Court has set down three weeks from June 5 to hear the spate of HSU legal action on foot - including separate bids by Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten and the union's acting national president Chris Brown to place HSU East into administration - but has questioned whether it has jurisdiction over the state-registered branch.
NSW Police won't rule out laying criminal charges over interference with its investigation into the HSU's East branch, after it raided the union's headquarters today and "intercepted" a person with a "bag of documents" in the carpark below.
The Federal Court has accepted a settlement of the "motelling" dispute reached between contractors on Woodside's giant Pluto project and the CFMEU, AMWU and CEPU that suspends hefty individual fines faced by more than 1300 employees in exchange for a seven-year moratorium on industrial action.
It is employers seeking increased discretion over terms and conditions that overwhelmingly initiate IFAs, according to the ACTU; while employer groups want four-year terms for the individual arrangements, with no unilateral termination unless both sides agree to allow it.
Fair Work Ombudsman Nick Wilson has warned an audience mostly comprised of large employers that his organisation will be giving equal focus to IR compliance of large to medium businesses as it does to small businesses.
An Abbott Coalition Government would shift enforcement and investigations from FWA to a new commission within the FWO and overhaul the registered organisations legislation to increase penalties 90-fold and provide for imprisonment, according to the Opposition Leader.
The interim report of the Temby investigation into the HSU’s East branch has found a “pressing” need to reform its procurement practices, after confirming large payments to suppliers totalling more than $17 million over four years without any competitive tendering or market testing.
FWA President Justice Iain Ross will head a new 16-member panel for major resources and infrastructure projects, after a revamp of the tribunal's longstanding panel system.
An FWA full bench will convene next week to consider applications to amend penalty rates in modern awards, after the tribunal outlined the process for reviewing awards, which it hopes to "substantially complete" by the end of the year.
