United Voice and the NUW are pushing ahead with merger plans to create Australia's biggest blue-collar union, with almost 156,000 members and an organising model that seeks to tackle low-paid labour hire jobs as well as part-time and casual work.
A former TWU official has lost a bitter dispute with the union over his dismissal in 2014, which he claimed was motivated by his absence from work due to a back injury.
The TWU will today raise the spectre of nationwide airport and road freight strikes as it pursues "sector-wide rates" for 38,000 workers covered by 200 expiring enterprise agreements.
The FWC will reconsider a mining company's bid to terminate an eight-year-old agreement covering no workers, a full bench finding a senior member gave it no opportunity to address his concern that it would not be in the public interest prior to talks with the CFMMEU.
Long-serving leader of Together Queensland, Alex Scott, says the success of his team in union elections gives it a mandate to campaign for a stronger worker voice on climate change, while its goal to raise $5 million over years will help it fight "hostile" government attacks on the public sector.
The FWC has stymied a company director's unfair dismissal claim for a second time, after a fresh hearing affirmed his car allowance and other benefits put his earnings beyond the high income threshold.
The re-election of the Morrison Coalition Government has preserved the features of the current industrial relations system, but left unanswered questions over its workplace agenda for the next three years.
As a brilliant ACTU advocate, the young Bob Hawke once delivered an "address-in-reply" in the then Conciliation and Arbitration Commission that lasted 12 days.
A public servant who claims her transfer to the HR department constituted bullying and retaliation for whistleblowing has failed to convince the FWC to issue interim orders removing the financial security authority's chief people officer as her supervisor and preventing disciplinary action.
The FWC has labelled a "fishing expedition" an attempt by the United Firefighters' Union to access a vast array of documents from the Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board, in an alleged dispute over budget cuts the union claims will negatively impact its members.
