An employer has been labelled "disingenuous" and a union told it could struggle to explain its interest to members in the "curious" case of employees not paid for work performed when they returned to their jobs before the end of a protected strike.
About 1800 waterfront workers have today begun a campaign of rolling strikes at DP World container terminals across Australia this week, after the MUA and stevedore failed to reach agreement on a new enterprise deal.
The CPSU has failed in its bid to claw back allowances in full for border protection employees who went on a series of strikes over a three year period.
An FWC member gave due recognition to the reduction of employees' bargaining power that would flow from him acceding to a DP World bid to extend notice for CFMMEU industrial action from three to five days, according to reasons issued by a full Federal Court today.
The FWC has rejected as "pedantic and technical" an attempt by Telstra to block industrial action it claimed was inconsistent with that endorsed by CEPU members.
Protected industrial action will start at DP World's four container terminals on Friday in the form of work bans, followed by rolling stoppages in individual ports from next week.
The NUW claims the Chemist Warehouse group has sought to immediately break an indefinite strike, which started today at warehouses in Victoria and Queensland.
An FWC full bench has upheld a decision requiring the CFMMEU to give DP World extra notice of industrial action at container terminals in Brisbane, Fremantle, Sydney and Melbourne, despite the union's protestations that it placed too much emphasis on the effect upon third parties.
The AFAP says Tigerair pilots had little choice but to strike today after the company mounted a legal challenge to plans for lower-level bans, but VIPA says its members chose not to take action as the airline "moved considerably" in negotiations for a new deal.
The FWC earlier this month halted industrial action at BP's Kwinana oil refinery after it accepted that a shutdown of up to a fortnight would be the "unavoidable and inevitable consequence" of protected bans and limitations by AWU members.
