The Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission has ruled that it doesn't have the power to hear a discrimination complaint from a woman engaged in London to work in Australia's High Commission.
In a case that might expose employers to significant damages for dismissing workers - particularly managers - employed under contract, a Federal Court full bench has upheld a court-ordered payment of $20,000 to a sacked senior manager for losing the chance to renew his contract.
Solicitors acting for unfair dismissal claimants are immune from IRC costs orders, after the Commission found it has no power under s170CJ to make such orders.
The construction union has achieved a breakthrough in its 36-hour week campaign, signing up four major builders to a deal which phases in the shorter week over four years.
More than 20,000 union members have taken up the ACTU/Virtual Communities deal of a PC and email access for around $10 a week, according to the Sharan Burrow, the ACTU's new president.
In a warning to employers not to discriminate against employees participating in protected industrial action, the Federal Court has found a manufacturing employer discriminated against two casual employees it laid off.
The Federal Court has found the AMWU and its Victorian secretary might have contravened the s170NC prohibition on coercion when they arranged pickets against an employer during a protected bargaining period.
Employers yet to implement policies for employee use of email and the internet will have to move quickly to draft and circulate them, as pressure mounts from privacy regulators and unions.
The IRC's Victorian public sector s170MX arbitration decision undoes a key part of the former Kennett Government's agenda, with its restoration of parity between employees who refused to sign individual and non-union collective agreements and those who did sign.
