A Fair Work Commissioner was wrong to give the Tax Office permission to be represented by a solicitor but not a barrister, but a full bench has denied the NSW Bar Association leave to appeal against the representation ruling because the ATO admitted it did not adversely affect its case.
The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption will hold its first hearing next month and Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon will hand his final report to the federal government at the end of the year.
In another chapter of a long-running case involving a botched attempt to lodge AWAs, a former company director will have the penalty for her role in short-changing 33 call centre workers reduced after the Federal Court cut in half the period in which she was liable as an accessory to her company's breaches.
The royal commission into union financial dealings will force some employers to give an account of their own dealings, according to Employment Minister Eric Abetz.
In one of the first rulings since meal rooms became the default meeting place for union discussions with employees, the FWC has refused to issue an order giving the NUW unfettered access to workers at a Coles distribution centre, despite finding that the chain's new right of entry policy is inconsistent with the Fair Work Act.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz has vowed to take the existing legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission to a vote in the Senate, arguing that Labor and the Greens would not give their support even it was amended.
In a rare instance of a court imposing the maximum penalty under the Fair Work Act, the CFMEU mining and energy division has been fined $33,000 for unlawfully implementing its overtime policy at BHP Coal's Peak Downs mine.
The Federal Court has issued a sweeping injunction to stop CFMEU construction and general division WA branch assistant secretary Joe McDonald from entering Brookfield Multiplex construction sites for nearly three years and ordered the union to pay the company $500,000 in compensation for strikes he incited at two major projects last year.
The employers of two long-term train drivers who were off work for between 18 months and two years because of health issues were entitled to dismiss them when they were ruled unable to resume driving duties, the Fair Work Commission has found.
The Fair Work Commission has removed urine testing from DP World's national drug and alcohol policy, but has also refused a union bid to impose a "three strikes" disciplinary process at four ports across the country.
