Industrial action/disputes page 72 of 81

Determining a matter "on the papers" when a union had asked for a hearing denied it procedural fairness, a Fair Work Commission full bench has ruled.

The Federal Court has ordered the MUA to produce documents, including records of any government lobbying, in the long-running dispute over whether its anti-foreign crewing campaign and not safety was behind industrial action at Chevron's Gorgon project in 2012.

The licenced aircraft engineers' union is urging the "liberalisation" of union coverage rules, saying that if they didn't exist at all, the industrial unrest that fuelled the bargaining battle between the union and Qantas might have been diminished before the airline dramatically shut down its operations and locked out its workforce in 2011.

In a case set aside until the High Court ruled on the Mammoet accommodation dispute, the Fair Work Commission has found that coal mining workers should have been paid their safety and production allowance while they were taking protected action during a bargaining battle.

ASX top 100 company Asciano, which estimates that its subsidiary Patrick's last bruising bargaining round cost it $21 million, is calling for a greater role for the Fair Work Commission in "agreement facilitation".

The Senate committee inquiring into the federal government's bargaining bill has handed down a report free of any recommendations to improve it, with Coalition senators wanting it passed without amendment and Labor and the Greens calling for its rejection.

Unions are seeking authorisation for industrial action at the massive Gorgon gas project, after workers employed by its largest contractor resoundingly voted down an agreement that would have provided an extra day off in each 35-day roster cycle.

The High Court will today hear the CFMEU's argument that Boral can't use court discovery processes to force the union to produce documents that might expose it to punishment for contempt for allegedly defying injunctions on Victoria's Regional Rail project.

The head of Networks NSW, which owns the power "poles and wires" entities that are to be privatised if the Coalition wins Saturday's NSW election, is pushing for FWC approval of agreements to be conditional on them undergoing an objective "productivity test" and is backing calls for the creation of a separate FWC appeals jurisdiction.

The CFMEU construction and general division's "cavalier attitude" to court orders has cost it another $125,000, with the Federal Court finding it in contempt of undertakings not to block access to a Victorian wind farm project last year.