In the first test of whether Queensland's laws regulating peaceful assemblies can be used to block pickets and protests during industrial disputes, the state's Supreme Court has rejected mining company Glencore's argument that such activities can't be authorised.
The FWC has implored a barrister to urge his client to "at least consider" engaging with employees, after conceding it has no jurisdiction to deal with a dispute over a "double standard" on redundancy packages between blue and white-collar workers.
The High Court has reserved its decision on parallel appeals by Esso and the AWU questioning what constitutes a breach of bargaining orders and whether a breach during bargaining means future protected action is not possible.
A full Federal Court has fined the CFMEU $300,000 and the CEPU $130,000 over a 2011 industrial campaign; penalties that are almost three times higher than originally sought by the construction watchdog.
The FWC has temporarily restrained a union from taking industrial action after accepting it was not genuinely seeking an agreement when a delegate made the "somewhat unusual" suggestion that the company shift its workers to a labour supply or contracting arrangement managed by him.
An Esso contractor has today won a court order to ban unions from using their giant inflatable rat, known as Scabby, from a picket outside the oil giant's Longford processing plant in Gippsland.
Workers at a Victorian timber mill have voted up an enterprise agreement they turned down last month, ending a bitter 10-week lockout the Victorian Government had been seeking to terminate.
