A full Federal Court has today rejected a bid by the CFMMEU's manufacturing division to overturn the FWC's decision to deny it a ballot of members to win approval to disamalgamate from the broader union.
The heads of the RTBU Victorian branch's tram and bus division and its locomotive division are suing Victorian branch secretary Vik Sharma over union election material excluding candidates on their ticket, seeking orders to repay nearly $33,000 in publishing costs to the rail operations division.
Ahead of a hearing into the mining and energy division's increasingly-clear path to split from the CFMMEU, the latter has consented to revised rule changes and RO Commissioner Mark Bielecki has confirmed he will no longer participate.
The RTBU's Victorian branch says it is scheduled to meet this morning with its locomotive division to discuss a rule change bid that the division started to pursue before allegedly "blindsiding" the union on Friday with a demerger application.
The CFMMEU's mining energy division looks likely to be able to proceed with its plans to demerge from the broader union, after the parties reached a peace deal.
The FWC has given the CFMMEU's legal team access to the mining and energy division's membership roll ahead of a hearing into its demerger bid, after the amalgamated union argued it owns the division's records and rejected suggestions its in-house lawyers might misuse the information.
Incoming CFMMEU construction and general division national secretary Zachary (Zach) Smith will take over from the long-serving Dave Noonan in April, after 15 years with the union and serving as leader and assistant leader of the ACT branch for the past three years.
The FWC has refused to stay a MUA rule change that reserves two new full-time assistant national secretary positions for a woman and an Indigenous person, until the tribunal hears a challenge from a retired former union member.