The ROC has wound up its three-year investigation of the AWU's historical $264,000 in donations that led to the infamous raid on the union's Melbourne and Sydney headquarters, finding the union breached registered organisations laws when it failed to authorise any of the 20 donations under the spotlight, but has decided against taking any further action against individuals or the union.
Woolworths has revealed another $144 million in underpayments to workers covered by its three main enterprise agreements, while warning its backpay bill for its earlier revelations about shortchanging salaried employees could still go higher.
The CFMMEU says that mine workers are "angry and dismayed" at a decision against laying charges over a 2020 explosion at a Queensland coal mine in which five labour hire workers sustained serious burns.
The ACCC's recent heightened focus on the building industry might be bearing fruit, after the Federal Court found this week that the CFMMEU induced and had knowing involvement in major construction company J Hutchinson's unlawful boycott of a non-union waterproofing subcontractor, the Federal Court has ruled.
The Federal Court has criticised the ABCC's "misrepresentation" of evidence in pleadings and a media release, concluding the watchdog bore some responsibility for a subsequent report in a national newspaper that wrongly stated that a CFMMEU organiser made a "throat-slitting" gesture to a truck driver.
The Federal Court has largely declined to take into account the CFMMEU's "recidivism" in setting a penalty against it for an organiser's unintended racial slur when he complained to a supervisor of southeast Asian background about the "third world" state of a Perth building site.
The Morrison Government has today introduced legislation in response to two Migrant Workers' Taskforce recommendations to make it an offence to pressure temporary migrant workers to breach their visa conditions and to create a new power to ban employers that underpay them.
Shadow IR Minister Tony Burke has today attacked Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker's approach to "insecure" work, accusing her of "spin", mischaracterising Labor's policy position and operating in a manner similar to that of the "partisan" ABCC and ROC.
The Fair Work Ombudsman increased its use of compliance notices by 113% in 2020-21, as it sought to quickly rectify underpayments instead of taking action in the courts, while it has nevertheless ramped up its legal action by more than 40% and set up a dedicated branch to pursue corporate misconduct.