The FWC has found no justification for interfering with a union's "statutory right" to three working days notice of industrial action against an "essential service" energy provider, after taking into account a five-point "safety commitment" the ETU put forward in response to the employer's concerns about supply continuity.
CFMMEU mining and energy division members have this week kicked off protected action in BHP's Queensland coal mines, sparking early sparring over the company's proposed ban on allowing workers back into their accommodation camp while on strike.
In the first test of Secure Jobs zombie-slayer provisions, a FWC full bench has refused to delay the automatic axing of a scaffolding company's 14-year-old deal after establishing that, contrary to the employer's claims, many of its workers will be better off under the award.
The FWC has refused to suspend engineers' industrial action at a Virgin Australia subsidiary while their employer pursues an intractable bargaining declaration, in an early test of the new Secure Jobs provision.
Tugboat operator Svitzer has been ordered to extend a rating's fixed-term contract after the FWC speculated that his senior role at the MUA was the real reason he was the only member of his crew not offered continuing employment.
In its first decision since pay secrecy penalties took effect this month, the FWC has rejected an employer's bid to redact a "commercially sensitive" list of clients included in a proposed agreement.
Apple says it expects to put a new agreement to retail workers next month as it resists RAFFWU's bid to axe the tech giant's 2014 deal, which the SDA also contends is replete with "palpable and entrenched unfairness" but refuses to support or oppose terminating while bargaining.
In the latest of a rash of PABO decisions since new Secure Jobs provisions took effect on June 6, the FWC has ruled that an employer's bid to bypass unions and put its agreement to a vote provides exceptional circumstances to warrant using a non-AEC ballot agent.
Visy workers in South Australia will receive a backdated 8.6% pay boost after the FWC found that their deal's annual rise clause applied the state's CPI figure rather than the lower national inflation rate.