A construction supply company's bid to suspend protected action for a fortnight so it can better engage with picketing union members has fallen flat in the FWC.
The financial implications of the ABCC's Pattinson High Court case being heard today have been reinforced by the Federal Court's latest ruling against the CFMMEU, a judge acknowledging that while the $460,000 fine factored in the union's long history of contraventions it still needed to be "proportionate" to the breaches involved.
The Toll Group has applied for the FWC to intervene in a bargaining dispute that has expanded to include indefinite strikes by UWU members at seven warehouses across three states.
A Queensland hospital group citing "coercion" concerns has failed to stop the ETU from obtaining a protected action ballot order sought just weeks after an identical ballot failed due to lack of a quorum.
A Federal Court judge has set a limit on the construction watchdog's use of anti-picketing laws to bring unions to heel, observing that "while picketing involves obstruction, not every obstruction is a picket".
In a decision that has piqued the interest of local unions, a US National Labor Relations Board majority has upheld a ruling that deploying a giant "Scabby the Rat" near neutral employers did not amount to an illegal secondary boycott.
The ABCC has been handed a giant sledgehammer in its running battle with the CFMMEU after a Federal Court judge found that he did not need the construction industry watchdog to request personal payment orders before making union members pay fines out of their own pockets.
The Federal Court has imposed fines and costs of almost $1 million on the CFMMEU and more than $170,000 on officials and delegates for unlawful picketing and coercion of a crane company to reinstate a sacked delegate and sign an agreement.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus says unions will throw their full support behind an indefinite strike at a Melbourne food plant, where workers received their last pay increase five years ago.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has begun Federal Court action against the CFMMEU and five union officials stemming from the bitter 2017-18 dispute at Glencore's Oaky North coal mine in Queensland, which included a seven-month lockout and picket.