Industrial action/disputes page 40 of 82

The Victorian government plans to intervene for a second time in a lengthy bargaining dispute over a new enterprise agreement covering Esso's offshore oil and gas workers in Bass Strait.

The AMWU says a decision by the RBA's money printing arm, Note Printing Australia, to lock out workers in response to a planned one-hour stopwork leaves members free to employ an element of surprise in future actions in support of a new deal.

Worker blew last chance "in spectacular fashion"; Alcoa mine and refinery workers down tools; Foreign pilots visa designed to drive down salaries: Union; Emergency services commissioner resigns over bullying.

BlueScope is seeking to bolster a proposed three-year agreement at its Port Kembla steel operations with a guaranteed $4000 pre-payment from a new profit share scheme.

The union leading the campaign against prospective job losses at a major brewery is at risk of being sidelined after the FWC found it "reached the line between [unacceptably careless disregard] and. . . deliberate non-compliance" in failing to communicate restraining notices to members.

The ACTU's triennial Congress has endorsed a proposal for state and federal governments to enact industrial manslaughter laws, after maritime union leader Chris Cain told delegates that employers who recklessly kill workers should face $20 million fines and 20 years behind bars.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus has today mounted a spirited defence of solidarity among union members, saying that calling a strikebreaker a "scab" is "an accurate description", while the peak body's new president said she experienced the power of unions when as 14-year-old waitress, members helped her fight back against sexual harassment by a supervisor.

The FWO has launched a challenge to last month's Federal Court order for the MUA to pay a $38,000 fine for a single contravention of the prohibition on unlawful strikes, when the watchdog was seeking $3.6 million for what it says was more than 500 breaches during industrial action against stevedore Hutchison Ports.

Protected action should be available to workers without the need for a secret ballot, according to the draft IR policy to be put to the ACTU's triennial Congress next week.

An order requiring the NTEU to give a university more than the statutory three days' notice of protected industrial action has been quashed by an FWC full bench that found a tribunal member wrongly presupposed that any such action would be suspended by the Commission if it interfered with student exams or graduation.