The FWC decided this week to terminate rather than suspend industrial action at the Australian Rail Track Authority, because the parties' "entrenched" positions made it "unlikely any significant progress would be made" if it ordered a pause, according to newly-released reasons.
The FWC has found no justification for interfering with a union's "statutory right" to three working days notice of industrial action against an "essential service" energy provider, after taking into account a five-point "safety commitment" the ETU put forward in response to the employer's concerns about supply continuity.
The FWC has refused to suspend engineers' industrial action at a Virgin Australia subsidiary while their employer pursues an intractable bargaining declaration, in an early test of the new Secure Jobs provision.
Resources giant Santos has been ordered to pay $65,000 to a worker sacked for telling a contractor to "take a sickie" during a strike, the FWC finding the dismissal harsh after weighing his long and unblemished career.
The FWC's national practice leader for bargaining has started the clock on compulsory conciliation while a strike vote is conducted, having also used one of the first applications under new workplace laws to suggest that while the "recency" of the provisions made a case for endorsing an unapproved ballot agent, the bar will be higher in future.
A judge has overcome his irritation at being asked to rule on an "arid debate" to find the now-defunct ABCC did not exceed its powers when it initiated its first case against the CFMMEU's maritime division over alleged death threats against workers attempting to cross a picket line.
The UFU's Victorian branch has won the first round of Federal Court proceedings in which it alleges a senior State Labor minister engaged in coercive conduct while intervening in a case before the FWC.
Stevedoring giant Qube has failed to overturn a ruling that it should have slashed the minimum number of hours salaried dockworkers needed to work in a year after withholding their pay over 11 weeks of protected industrial action.
The FWC has focused on the difference between "probability" and "possibility" in its reasons for rejecting a bid by a company providing search and rescue services to terminate protected industrial action on the basis that it could endanger lives.
The Federal Court is continuing to order CFMMEU officials to pay penalties out of their own pockets, rejecting arguments that two first offenders and one organiser no longer employed by the union should have their fines suspended.
