The FWC has found it has no basis to suspend industrial action by CEPU members at the Australian Submarine Corporation, because a campaign of 162 half-hour stopworks is yet to begin, but has warned it would be likely to issue orders to provide for an agreement ballot in a strike-free environment if circumstances change.
An FWC full bench has upheld a decision that found workers should be paid for unworked overtime hours under an inclement weather provision that applies to enterprise agreements across the Icthys LNG project near Darwin.
In an unusual case in which a coffee chain franchisee has convinced an FWC full bench to quash its agreement after claiming it and an IR consultant provided false evidence to win its approval, the tribunal will refer their statutory declarations to the Federal Police to investigate whether they have committed any crimes.
The FWC has revoked three decisions issued last week that terminated Pizza Hut's national and Queensland agreements, saying they were issued "due to administrative error".
The FWC has granted the CFMEU standing as an intervener to scrutinise whether an agreement passes the better off overall test, despite an employer's objections that it has no members affected, has a commercial interest in opposing deals and is a generally disreputable organisation.
The IEU has flagged rolling stopworks in more than 500 NSW and ACT schools next term after the FWC held that, just as the Roman Catholic Church's dioceses are in "full communion" they are also engaged in a "common enterprise", so its employees are eligible to take protected action.
The FWC looks set to reduce by a week its hearings into an application by Coles nightfill worker Penny Vickers to terminate the 2011 agreement, after warning that granting further extensions could render her case moot if the retailer gets a new agreement approved.
Wesfarmers has avoided having chief executive Richard Goyder put on the witness stand ahead of the FWC later this year hearing Penny Vickers' bid to terminate its 2011 supermarkets agreement, after a full bench accepted that the parent company had no role in approving the retailer's 2014 enterprise deal.
In a case likely to have ramifications for hundreds of existing enterprise deals, the High Court has reserved its decision in Aldi's appeal against a decision knocking out a controversial agreement on the basis it was agreed by prospective employees not yet covered by it.
