In a lucrative Christmas/New Year period for the Commonwealth's coffers, the Federal Circuit Court has handed down penalties amounting to more than $580,000 in eight separate cases brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman against companies and their directors for breaches of the Fair Work Act.
Coles meatworkers in Victoria and Tasmania were entitled to vote to take protected industrial action because they had been genuinely seeking separate enterprise agreements late last year, a FWC full bench has ruled.
The Federal Court has thrown out a challenge by Victorian HSU leaders to the Fair Work Commission's inquiry into allegations that the union rorted the right of entry permit system.
The ANZ bank has offered annual pay rises of between 3.75% to 5.25% over two years if employees accept a new enterprise agreement, while threatening to pay a single annual increase of between 3% to 4.5% if it is rejected.
Serco Sodexo Defence Services Pty Ltd has failed to convince the Fair Work Commission it obtained employment for the vast bulk of its workforce when it lost its Defence Department contracts last year, and now faces a hefty redundancy bill for the hundreds of employees who found jobs with the new contractors.
A SA Supreme Court full bench has ruled that an employer must pay long service leave to a casual dockhand who worked sporadically for more than 20 years at Port Lincoln Harbour but has also recommended that state parliament urgently fix legislation that reduced his entitlement to almost nothing.
The Federal Court has ordered a lawyer to personally pay another party's legal costs in a general protections claim, finding that he unreasonably advised his client to add his employer's solicitor to the application.
In a move that the government has dismissed as a political stunt, the ACTU has told Employment Minister Eric Abetz he should suspend his IR legislative agenda for at least a year to enable the Heydon trade union inquiry and the Productivity Commission Fair Work Act review to run their course.
NSW power unions are pushing for a job security clause to cover thousands of workers at the state's two biggest "poles and wires" network businesses, which have been earmarked for privatisation if the Coalition is returned in March.
Two mineworkers sacked for breaching "lifesaving" rules at a mine owned and operated by BHP Coal have been reinstated after the Fair Work Commission found their dismissals disproportionate and inconsistent.
