The ABCC is pressing ahead with prosecutions against the CFMMEU, three officials and 44 individual workers over alleged industrial action last year on a Perth airport rail link project.
The CFMMEU construction and general division's pledge overnight of its "full support" for embattled Victorian branch secretary John Setka has been undercut by the resignation today of his deputy, Shaun Reardon, due to "irreconcilable differences" with his boss.
Labor's new shadow IR minister is prominent frontbencher and former SDA organiser Tony Burke, who in his youth won improved pay and conditions for paperboys after threatening to picket a newsagency.
Re-elected Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stressed the importance of law enforcement in adding IR to the responsibilities of Attorney-General Christian Porter in his new ministry announced yesterday.
As a brilliant ACTU advocate, the young Bob Hawke once delivered an "address-in-reply" in the then Conciliation and Arbitration Commission that lasted 12 days.
A mountain-climbing former radiographer who once found a future FWC vice president leading a team of dancing lawyers outside her office has become one of the tribunal's newest senior members.
The composition and role of the Fair Work Commission "must be re-examined" due to Coalition governments appointing 20 consecutive members from an employer background, according to an internal ACTU report.