A court has fined the CFMEU and two organisers almost $100,000, after finding the union engaged in unlawful coercion and adverse action when it organised a blockade at the $1.6 billion Port of Melbourne expansion project because an employer refused to bargain.
A tip-off from the Fair Work Ombudsman has led to the prosecution of a former company director for alleged breaches of the corporations law when he sought to deregister an entity that owed the Federal Government more than $50,000 in penalties for unpaid employee entitlements.
The CFMEU and its former construction and general division Queensland branch president David Hanna have been fined more than $37,000 for threatening to continue industrial action against a construction company unless it agreed to a secret deal, with the court finding the union had a boundless disregard for the law.
A court has fined a company and its director $124,000 over a sham contracting arrangement in which they underpaid a 417 visa-holder almost $8000 for four months work after misclassifying him as an independent contractor.
The committal hearing for blackmail charges against CFMEU construction and general division Victorian branch secretary John Setka and his assistant secretary Shaun Reardon is set to be delayed until the middle of next year.
More than 50 construction workers are facing penalties after the Federal Court found they took unlawful strike action when they attended a CFMEU rally at a Perth children's hospital construction site in 2013, but the union says the case is a complete "farce".
The FWO has used accessorial liability provisions to secure substantial penalties across the chain of command of a frozen yoghurt franchise responsible for underpaying four overseas workers.
The CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch spent $13.1 million on legal costs in the 12 months to the end of last year, up more than five-fold from $2.3 million in 2014.
The CFMEU says it will appeal to a full Federal Court over a judge's refusal to let it withdraw admissions that it was liable for right of entry contraventions by five officials at three Adelaide construction sites, after the High Court on Friday found the union inappropriately invoked its jurisdiction.