The Heydon Royal Commission has recommended that the Turnbull Government introduce special legislation to disqualify officers of the CFMEU who are deemed by Parliament to be not to be fit and proper persons, while stopping short of recommending the union's deregistration.
The CFMEU is considering whether to appeal after it was refused permission to hold talks in a BHP Coal mine's dragline crib rooms because it was a "functional work area", rather than a meal or break area.
An FWC full bench has upheld a decision to grant an entry permit to CFMEU construction and general division Queensland branch secretary Michael Ravbar, and dismissed the FWBC’s arguments that he was vicariously liable for the behaviour of other union officials as "riddled with unsubstantiated hyperbole".
FWBC director Nigel Hadgkiss has confirmed that 21 of the 53 matters it currently has before the courts concern right of entry breaches, and the issue is at the centre of a further 19 investigations.
A senior FWC member has considered whether the tribunal should take into account a union's "poor history of compliance" and its "large number of contraventions" when it determines whether an official is a "fit and proper person" to hold an entry permit.
A self-confessed "smart-arse" organiser, who claimed to be crocodile hunter Steve Irwin after he entered a NSW building site for a safety inspection while under a Queensland permit, might be personally liable for any penalties.
An employer's insistence that a union organiser conduct meetings with members at a remote construction site in a non-airconditioned shipping container that reached temperatures of 50 degrees celsius did not excuse his abusive response, the Federal Court has ruled.
HSU Victorian No. 1 branch general manager Kimberley Kitching completed tests required to gain entry permits for officials in early 2013 with the "knowledge and authorisation" of branch secretary Diana Asmar, the Fair Work Commission found today.
