A company that relied on an FWC online calculator to notify workers of a ballot has had the resulting agreement thrown out for failing to provide the statutory seven-day access period, prompting a senior Commission member to lament his inability to "overcome what is clearly a procedural failure".
The CFMMEU has had a partial victory in its attempt to gain access to communications between the operator of a new "robo" terminal at the Port of Melbourne and two employer bodies, the AMMA and MBA.
An FWC full bench has stressed the need to list hearings "expeditiously" after a Thomas Foods meat worker claimed a decision to delay his agreement termination application, to allow time for bargaining, meant hundreds of colleagues continued to be paid below award rates.
Together Queensland is under threat of legal action from the ALP's national head office, after the union refused to provide undertakings over its alleged unauthorised monitoring and storage of the emails of the union's former assistant secretary, who also served on the party's national executive.
The CFMMEU has begun Federal Court action that seeks to hold John Holland and CPB Contracting vicariously liable for subcontractors' alleged underpayment of wages and entitlements on Canberra's light rail project, with the union seeking to recover $700,000 and impose penalties.
State governments should bring the treatment of wage theft by employers into line with thefts by employees, according to the labour law firm Hall Payne.
The rise of the gig economy is not leading to an increase in self-employed workers, according to the latest HILDA survey, while an Australian academic has told an international IR conference that "not here" capitalism presents other challenges.
The FWC has revised its agreement processing timelines in the wake of a big rise in approvals with undertakings and rejections due to defective bargaining notices, promising to clear all straightforward deals within eight weeks and more complicated ones within 16 weeks.
