Former HSU leader Marco Bolano has told the Heydon Royal Commission this morning that he was "surprised" to discover that tobacco giant Philip Morris had contributed funds to his 2009 election campaign and "stunned" that political "enemy" Bill Shorten had done likewise.
Future Prime Minister Julia Gillard told a Melbourne builder in 1993 that AWU leader and her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson was paying for her home renovations, the Heydon Royal Commission has heard.
Fair Work Commission member Ian Cambridge, a former national secretary of the AWU, will appear this week before the Heydon Royal Commission, which will resume its hearings into the union’s Workplace Reform Association "slush fund".
The Queensland Government has repealed its requirement for unions to conduct a ballot of members before engaging in any political campaigning worth more than $10,000.
Unions lost almost 93,000 members in the 12 months to August last year and density plunged to new lows of 17% overall and 12% in the private sector, according to the ABS.
The Heydon Royal Commission will give parties advance warning of evidence in in which they are "substantially and directly interested", under the terms of a new practice note.
The Fair Work Commission has granted an entry permit to a CFMEU construction and general division organiser, rejecting the FWBC's argument that it was obliged to give weight to the union's poor record of compliance with industrial laws.
Australia has been named as a "country of concern" at the opening of the third congress of the International Trade Union Confederation in Berlin, along with more usual targets of criticism.