Senior Victorian Government Minister Robert Clark has told the HR Nicholls Society that he has drawn on all three of his portfolios to combat bad behaviour in the building industry and has flagged changes to strengthen the guidelines for contractors seeking state government work.
Adding campaign material to company correspondence, answering customer inquiries with automated messages about bargaining, and placing slogans on company cars are all valid forms of industrial action, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
A new report from a major employment law firm predicts that the Senate will pass the Abbott Government's Fair Work Act and building industry amendments, suggests the next reforms will be limits on industrial action and productivity requirements for enterprise agreements, and highlights the lower than expected activity in the FWC's anti-bullying jurisdiction.
Glencore Xstrata has won conditional approval for the enterprise agreement it struck with 21 non-union workers it hired when it reopened what had been its unionised Collinsville coal mine in Central Queensland earlier this year.
A Federal Court full court has agreed to stay FWBC penalty action against the CFMEU and eight officials over the Grocon blockades on the basis that the same conduct has already led to criminal proceedings, but has allowed the watchdog's unlawful coercion case to continue.
A two-week lockout of CSR Gyprock workers has ended with the parties reaching an in-principle agreement, talks are scheduled for tomorrow in a bid to end a two-month lockout at building supplier Ausreo, and a nine-month standoff over unpaid allowances for Dubbo maintenance workers has been resolved in a new deal.
Building industry supplier Ausreo says it will continue its lockout at a western Sydney site - now in its seventh week - until AMWU members realise their bargaining claims are "unreasonable and unsustainable".