Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has this afternoon introduced legislation that outlaws payments of "corrupting benefits" to unions and imposes penalties on those who provide or receive such payments.
The AWU kicks off its biennial conference today, with new national secretary Daniel Walton seeking to revive falling membership and protect jobs in key industry segments rather than pursue mergers with other unions. Meanwhile, the FWC has been questioning the "integrity" of the union’s reported membership numbers for the five years to 2014.
An FWC full bench majority has upheld a decision to refuse a CFMEU organiser an entry permit while noting that the union failed to take up an opportunity to propose conditions.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash will lead the push to re-establish the ABCC and to create a specialist regulator of unions, once the Federal parliament resumes on August 30.
Internal divisions within a union over the funding of a redundancy payment to a long-serving administrative employee have boiled over in the Federal Court.
The Federal Court has imposed a $76,500 penalty on the musicians' union and $17,000 on its former general secretary for breaching financial reporting requirements for the union's national, Melbourne and Sydney branches from 2007 until late 2012.
The Fair Work Commission is reviewing exemptions that permit entities other than the Australian Electoral Commission to conduct registered organisations' elections.
The Turnbull Government is seeking to make a direct link between the Heydon Royal Commission's findings and the ABCC legislation that looks set to be a double-dissolution trigger, but there is no concrete policy connection between the two, according to a leading IR academic.
FWC accepts PC report as submission rather than evidence; Heerey report due at end of month; Patrick talks continuing; Productivity portfolio dropped in Turnbull's reshuffle; and MUA tells members not to respond to FWO overtures.
