More than 50 construction workers are facing penalties after the Federal Court found they took unlawful strike action when they attended a CFMEU rally at a Perth children's hospital construction site in 2013, but the union says the case is a complete "farce".
The CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch spent $13.1 million on legal costs in the 12 months to the end of last year, up more than five-fold from $2.3 million in 2014.
The Fair Work Act is "effectively useless" to counter picketing, according to a leading employer-clientele barrister who laments that police often turn "a blind eye" to what would normally be considered criminal conduct, while the High Court's chief justice has canvassed the utility of comparative law in the workplace legal arena.
The Victorian Supreme Court took the "serious step" of imposing a representative order on individuals involved in an unlawful blockade at a Geelong oil refinery early this month, but extending it to encompass future participants would go beyond the terms of any previous such order, according to the judge in the case.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection will put a new offer to its employees in the wake of the Fair Work Commission's decision to terminate industrial action at airports across the country and move towards arbitration of a new agreement.
Despite securing almost $2 million in penalties against non-compliant players in the construction industry over 12 months, the FWBC's director says that it is losing the fight to restore law and order on building sites.
The FWC has banned hundreds of subcontractor workers at six Lend Lease projects in Queensland from taking unlawful industrial action in support of protected strikes by two dozen of the construction giant's direct employees.
The FWC terminated protected action at airports because suspension would have provided a "non-permanent conclusion" to the long-running bargaining dispute between the CPSU and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
The Fair Work Commission has terminated industrial action at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, opening the door to the arbitration of a new agreement after a bargaining deadlock of almost three years.