Patrick and the MUA have today begun four days of assisted negotiations, despite an FWC full bench yesterday clearing the way for the union to resume industrial action.
An FWC full bench has today overruled a decision that an employer breached good faith bargaining obligations when it insisted on conducting enterprise agreement negotiations by teleconference rather than face-to-face meetings.
The FWC has ruled that a company's enterprise agreement obliges it provide "meaningful work" to redeployees and operates as an exception to the general rule that there is no common law right to be provided with work.
As Parliament prepares to rise for the year, the Turnbull Government has introduced legislation containing the provisions removed from the Fair Work Act amending legislation that came into effect last week.
The AWU and Cleanevent are awaiting a Federal Court ruling on their legal tussle over the modern award to cover cleaners at the Spotless group subsidiary.
Stevedore DP World has acknowledged its "clerical error" is to blame for the FWC's rejection of proposed enterprise agreements for its Melbourne and Brisbane container terminals, after its ballot declarations wrongly stated that fewer than 10% and 2% of workers respectively supported the deals.
The Fair Work Commission will hear objections to the insertion of model annual leave terms into hospitality, mining and health sector modern awards at a hearing next month.
The FWC has for the second time approved an agreement covering the main Sydney Harbour ferry service workforce after dismissing the motivation for a belated scope order bid for masters and engineers as "little more than petty elitism rather than any genuine unfairness".
A ban on smoking in the workplace has survived a union challenge after the Fair Work Commission found the policy reasonable because the employer had taken steps to consult with employees and offered support to help them quit.
The new enterprise agreement between Hutchison Ports and the MUA provides for greater use of casual labour and for negotiations on longer working hours as shipping container volumes rise.