A CFMMEU official who had already clocked almost $40,000 in penalties for entry breaches has today landed a $10,000 personal payment order for entering a site to exercise an OHS right, just a month after surrendering his permit.
A court has penalised an early learning centre that refused on the basis of an alleged threat to its workers' "health and wellbeing" to allow a union organiser use its staff room to hold discussions, directing her instead to a storage room.
A senior FWC member has rebutted ABCC arguments that entry permit holders should not be "rewarded" for exercising their rights without incident, observing in the course of a renewal application that such behaviour simply be accorded "appropriate weight" when applying the 'fit and proper person' test.
An FWC full bench has rejected MUA Sydney branch secretary Paul McAleer's appeal against being denied an entry permit, finding a tribunal member held no obligation to signal that the official might have his rights withdrawn after 12 years due to a history of industrial law breaches.
A judge has today accepted the ABCC's view that the construction union's lengthy rap sheet should influence the penalty for a relatively minor breach, but has declined to impose a personal payment order on the official involved.
The ABCC, in opposing entry permits for CFMMEU maritime division leaders, is relying on the view that they fall within its jurisdiction because they are officials of a "building association".
The FWC has taken the rare step of revoking the entry permit of a CFMMEU official who aggressively swore at a subcontractor at a road construction site before asking if he was going to use the hammer he was carrying "to smash me".
The FWC has rebuked a union organiser for his "frankly inexplicable" failure to disclose in applying for a new right of entry permit that he had conditions imposed on previous ones.
In a significant ruling on how Fair Work Act breaches are to be assessed, a Federal Court full bench has invoked double jeopardy principles to strip $48,000 off penalties awarded against the CFMMEU and one of its organisers.