Key crossbench senators have sided with Labor and the Greens to delay a vote on legislation to re-establish the ABCC until at least the middle of March.
The FWO will enlist local employer groups in a three-month auditing blitz of more than 400 businesses in regions where workers are making "persistent" requests for assistance, including Perth, Adelaide and Dandenong.
The Federal Circuit Court has questioned why the FWBC chose not to prosecute the director of a phoenixed bricklaying company that failed to pay correct pay and entitlements to several "daily hire" workers.
A Roy Morgan Research subsidiary plans to take to the High Court its claim that payments to contractors should be taken to include all award entitlements, after a failed full court appeal that director Gary Morgan says has "massive implications" for other companies.
The Federal Court in fining the CFMEU $545,000 for unlawful industrial action has warned that it can't expect to keep its registration as a trade union while it "persistently abuses" its privileges.
Five weeks after ordering Darwin-based Choong Enterprises to pay the largest-ever court-imposed fine for breaching 457 visa sponsorship obligations, the Federal Court has directed the company to backpay seven of the Filipino workers involved a total of more than $100,000.
In one of the last wages and entitlements cases pursued by the FWBC, a building subcontractor that used a labour-hire company to distance itself from it employment obligations has been fined $145,000 and ordered to backpay $150,000 to more than a dozen workers.
The TWU has called for greater rights for foreign workers on temporary visas, with criminal sanctions to be imposed on employers who exploit them and illegally undercut wages.
