CFMEU WA secretary Kevin Reynolds today endured the first hours of what is likely to be a two-day grilling on the union's affairs, in a day of hearings in which tempers flared amid accusations of obfuscation and inappropriate behaviour.
Substantial rise in workers struggling with finances; Court fines Qantas $5,000, says agreement breach "understandable"; $30,000 fine for Donut King franchisee who deliberately underpaid disempowered employees; Fixed pay for chief executives growing three times faster than average earnings; Slow progress undone as number of executive women declines; Leading IR academic Keith Ewing to hold Australian seminars.
CFMEU WA branch secretary Kevin Reynolds today won a temporary reprieve from giving evidence in the State IRC inquiry into the union, but tomorrow now looms as D-Day after his lawyers failed in their bid for a longer adjournment.
The United Services Union will push the Federal Government to legislate to guarantee NSW local government workers will remain in the state IR system, after the Rees Government introduced legislation to de-corporatise councils and put them out of reach of Work Choices.
The Federal Magistrates Court has ordered the CFMEU (construction division) to pay penalties totalling $49,550 and a delegate $12,000 for breaching freedom of association laws over a bid to convince a contractor and a labour-hire worker to join the union; while a South Australian CFMEU official has been fined $1,300 and faces having his entry permit revoked for delaying a concrete pour.
CFMEU construction and general division WA branch secretary Kevin Reynolds has denied any involvement in events that led to hundreds of members being declared unfinancial in the lead-up to the union's election, in documents tendered in a State IRC hearing today.
In the first appeal ruling on the Work Choices provision allowing the suspension of industrial action causing significant harm to a third party, an AIRC full bench majority has overturned a two-month freeze on industrial action by school teachers in the NT.
Labour hire firm could employ Pacific Island seasonal workers; AIRC rearranges award modernisation consultations; Redraft Act to avoid unintended ballot order invalidity, says AIRC; Industrial Relations Society annual conferences coming up in WA, Vic; and ANU student wins McCallum Medal.
As the Federal Government's deadline for introducing its substantive IR legislation draws nearer, employer lobbying is continuing, with the ACCI today saying business would assess the new system against a five-point test, while the AMMA continued its criticism of the ALP's proposed new unfair dismissal laws.
The CFMEU has won the right to intervene in a Federal Court case that could have significant ramifications for the redundancy entitlements of construction workers across the country.
