The Master Builders Association has called on Canberra to act to give its proposed building watchdog the power to deal with secondary boycotts, which unions are using as a "weapon that has the capacity to send Master Builders' members to the wall or inflict sufficient damage to warrant complicity".
The construction watchdog's review of "cold cases" has identified another 14 cases where penalties were agreed through negotiation or discontinued, a Senate Estimates hearing has been told. Meanwhile, the Fair Work Ombudsman has rejected suggestions that it "washes its hands" of 457 visa complaints.
The FWBC has included CFMEU construction and general division national secretary Dave Noonan in its fourth prosecution over the $1.2 billion Perth Children's Hospital project.
The FWBC has included state leaders of the CFMEU and CEPU in a list it has issued today of 18 construction union officials who don't hold federal entry permits, in a bid to help the industry's employers repel unauthorised workplace visits.
The FWBC's application for an interlocutory injunction to stop the CFMEU taking industrial action at the $400 million Bald Hills Wind Farm project in South Gippsland was headed off yesterday when the union gave an undertaking to the Federal Court not to disrupt work on the site.
FWBC head Nigel Hadgkiss has called for agreement clauses allowing industry-wide RDOs, weekend shutdowns and restrictions on subcontractors and labour hire to be "consigned to the past where they belong".
Employment Minister Eric Abetz has vowed to take the existing legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission to a vote in the Senate, arguing that Labor and the Greens would not give their support even it was amended.
The Coalition has largely succeeded in neutralising IR as a 2013 federal election issue by promising to retain – at least for one term – Labor's Fair Work framework, but Australia's two major parties are still going to the September 7 poll with some significant policy differences, including on paid parental leave, right of entry, and construction industry regulation. Workplace Express compares their IR policies and those of the Greens, whose future hold on the Senate balance of power is uncertain.
