TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon has told the Heydon Royal Commission that he has "no recollection" of asking his Victorian secretary Wayne Mader to contribute $20,000 from a state-based fighting fund to support the incumbent leader of the ETU in NSW.
The Heydon Royal Commission has heard that a campaign fund associated with the TWU's national office and NSW branch contributed up to $200,000 to a group who ousted the leadership of the Queensland branch in 2010, and a further $120,000 to HSU and Flight Attendants Association election candidates two years later.
TWU Vic/Tas branch secretary Wayne Mader has told the Heydon Royal Commission today that officials from his branch made donations to candidates in HSU and ETU elections out of their own re-election fund.
Overall union membership might have fallen to as low as 10% if density had not stabilised across Australia's service and public sectors, new research has shown.
The Fair Work Commission has granted right of entry permits to a union branch secretary who initially failed to disclose that his previous one had been suspended for three months after an altercation with a union member, and to an organiser who visited 90 sites after his last permit expired.
The NSW Supreme Court has refused for now to issue jailed former HSU NSW leader Michael Williamson a certificate protecting him from self-incrimination in the union's proceedings against the branch's former assistant secretary, Peter Mylan.
In what the ACTU has dubbed a political witch hunt, the federal Attorney-General's department is questioning government agencies over their dealings with unions over the last ten years.
