The Federal Court has ordered the MUA to produce documents, including records of any government lobbying, in the long-running dispute over whether its anti-foreign crewing campaign and not safety was behind industrial action at Chevron's Gorgon project in 2012.
The licenced aircraft engineers' union is urging the "liberalisation" of union coverage rules, saying that if they didn't exist at all, the industrial unrest that fuelled the bargaining battle between the union and Qantas might have been diminished before the airline dramatically shut down its operations and locked out its workforce in 2011.
The High Court will today hear the CFMEU's argument that Boral can't use court discovery processes to force the union to produce documents that might expose it to punishment for contempt for allegedly defying injunctions on Victoria's Regional Rail project.
The head of Networks NSW, which owns the power "poles and wires" entities that are to be privatised if the Coalition wins Saturday's NSW election, is pushing for FWC approval of agreements to be conditional on them undergoing an objective "productivity test" and is backing calls for the creation of a separate FWC appeals jurisdiction.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's secondary boycott case against the CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch has been set down for a six-week trial in September next year.
In an important ruling on the definition of industrial action, the Federal Court has held that the provision of sensitive information to the media by employees is not "protected" under the Fair Work Act and might leave them vulnerable to breach of contract and coercion claims.
A five-day strike at Mermaid Marine's Dampier supply base has emerged as a test of how employers and employees adapt to the winding down of major offshore resources construction projects.
The MUA has given notice of five consecutive 24-hour stoppages at the Dampier supply base operated by Mermaid Marine Australia, starting from Wednesday.
