RMIT academic Professor Anthony Forsyth has told a forum on the Heydon Royal Commission that he has shifted his position on whether a specialist regulator of unions and employer organisations is justified, and now believes unions should accept the Coalition's proposed Registered Organisations Commission.
The AMWU is experiencing membership losses that threaten its future, according to a confidential review of the union led by former ACTU secretary Greg Combet.
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 Heydon Royal Commission has confirmed it will deliver its final report - which will run to "several volumes" - to the Federal Government by the end of the year.
Former HSU national secretary Kathy Jackson has today failed in her attempt to appeal a Federal Court decision for her to repay about $1.4 million to her old union.
A dramatic drop in membership helped push the AWU's Queensland branch to a $1.6 million loss in 2014-15, with its auditors expressing "material uncertainty" over its ability to continue as a going concern.
The Federal Court has this morning ordered former HSU national secretary Craig Thomson to pay about $458,000 in compensation and fines for inappropriate spending during his reign.
The NUW's troubled NSW branch faces a complete $250,000 write-down on its investment in a failed media company, Manic Times Pty Ltd, while the union's national secretary has confirmed it proceeded with a fundraiser that came under fire in the Heydon Royal Commission.
Former NUW NSW branch secretary Derrick Belan has rejected legal arguments by his old union that he was largely responsible for its governance problems.
CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor has been described in Federal Parliament as the "Sepp Blatter of the union movement" by a Nationals senator in tabling affidavits by three former CFMEU officials who continue to claim they were driven out of the NSW construction branch for whistleblowing.
