Under arrangements agreed to today between lawyers acting for the ACTU and counsel assisting the inquiry, unions will have until 2pm this Thursday to file written submissions, if they want to continue with the application to have Commissioner Heydon disqualified from presiding over the Royal Commission.
The NSW Teachers Federation has amalgamated its state and federal branches into a single entity, while the NSW/ACT Independent Education Union expects to officially become a subdivision of the IEUA by the beginning of next year.
A workplace ban on employees accessing leave to participate in a union-led rally on Monday has been overturned, on an interlocutory basis, by the Federal Circuit Court, after it accepted the ETU's argument that the move breached workers' general protections.
Awards should be limited to one per industry, with the FWC establishing a "new definition for unsociable hours" for each of them and determining "economy-wide" penalty rates, Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott has told a Sydney University gathering.
The High Court will determine whether employers can circumvent sham contracting provisions by utilising a third party, such as a labour hire company, to indirectly engage workers, after the FWO today won special leave to challenge a full Federal Court ruling.
The MUA has told the FWC that sacked stevedoring workers at Hutchison's Port Botany terminal, who last night temporarily won their jobs back, have been unable to do so because security guards are preventing access to the site.
The Federal Court has this evening granted an interlocutory order sought by the MUA to stop stevedore Hutchison Ports from proceeding with plans to dismiss almost 100 employees at its Sydney and Brisbane container terminals.
The MUA told an interlocutory hearing in Brisbane today that stevedore Hutchison should reinstate 97 workers from its Port Botany and Brisbane container terminals, because the company had breached its agreement when it engaged in tokenistic rather than substantive consultation with its workforce.
Four unions today started protected industrial action at the Melbourne-based plasma and vaccines manufacturer CSL Ltd, on the same day it announced a $US1.4 billion net profit.
