A CFMMEU organiser ordered to pay $10,000 out of his own pocket for entry breaches has avoided having his permit withdrawn after the FWC found that doing so would be "punitive and nothing more".
The FWC has refused to suspend engineers' industrial action at a Virgin Australia subsidiary while their employer pursues an intractable bargaining declaration, in an early test of the new Secure Jobs provision.
Long-serving MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin is understood to be well ahead of a rank-and-file challenger in the union's quadrennial elections, which has had problems with misspelt ballot papers and a "whistle-blower complaint" to the FWC's general manager.
As the CFMMEU's mining and energy division eagerly awaits the result of its demerger ballot, expected to be declared on Thursday, the RTBU's Victorian branch has told a FWC bench its locomotive division will be unable to protect members' interests if allowed to disamalgamate as it does not own the money in its bank accounts.
In the first test of new supported bargaining laws, the FWC will hear in mid-August the landmark application to authorise multi-employer negotiations involving 65 employers and 12,000 workers in the early childhood education and care sector.
The FWC has granted a first-time entry permit to a CFMMEU organiser with an extensive criminal past that includes assault, auto theft, trespass, breaching a restraining order, property damage and weapons convictions after hearing he turned his life around following a 10-month jail term in 2017.
Bunnings workers have voted up a long-awaited deal that introduces an extra week of annual leave, trials a four-day working week and scraps a contentious "bank of hours" rostering system, but RAFFWU claims it undercuts award minimums and is "simply not approvable in its current format".