Australian Industry Group v Automotive, Food, Metals, Engineering, Printing & Kindred Industries Union

The case between the Australian Industry Group and the Automotive, Food, Metals, Engineering, Printing & Kindred Industries Union involved a dispute over the enforcement of court orders prohibiting mass stopwork meetings in the metal industry. The unions involved were members of the Metal Trades Federation of Unions, an unincorporated association, which had called for meetings on 24 November 1999 to discuss a log of claims as part of an industry-wide campaign known as Campaign 2000. The Australian Industry Group sought to enforce court orders that restrained the unions from authorising or supporting these meetings. The unions argued that the breaches of the court orders were technical and not warranting penalties.

The legal issues before the court included whether the unions had breached the restraining orders and, if so, whether these breaches warranted penalties. The court had to determine whether the actions of the unions in authorising and supporting the meetings constituted a breach of the orders and, if they did, whether these breaches were merely technical or substantive enough to justify penalties. Additionally, the court had to consider the appropriate relief and penalties, if any, for the established breaches.

The court found that the unions had indeed breached the restraining orders by authorising and supporting the meetings. The court rejected the unions' argument that the breaches were merely technical, finding them to be substantive breaches warranting penalties. However, the court dismissed the application for punishment for the breaches as the court orders had been served too late to comply with the requirements. The court did declare that specific union officials were guilty of contempt for their roles in authorising the meetings and for failing to provide the required notice to the applicant. The court adjourned the hearing on penalties for these breaches to a later date and reserved the question of costs.

The court's orders included dismissing the application for punishment of the unions for breaches of the court orders but declaring that specific union officials were guilty of contempt for their conduct. The court also ordered the applicant to pay the costs of the unions for the motion and reserved the question of costs for a later hearing.