The High Court will consider whether employers' duty of care and consequent exposure to damages extends to providing "safe" disciplinary and dismissal processes that protect sacked workers from psychiatric injury.
In a significant decision acknowledged as potentially being viewed as "undemocratic", a FWC full bench majority has found it has the power to make a workplace determination on contested bargaining matters after a deal has already been approved by the Commission.
A ceremony to welcome former employment and IR silk Craig Dowling as a Federal Court judge has heard his in-court performance has been likened to a cobra hypnotising a mouse, while barristers always wanted to work with him as he left "no stone unturned".
The head of the FWC's registered organisations branch has warned Australia's second-biggest union that another decision-maker might not be so accommodating in approving a rule change advanced without conducting a formal vote.
The FWC has rejected an employer's bid to wind up a general manager's unfair dismissal case after finding that neither of two settlement offers could be regarded as binding.
The MEU has today lodged the first "same job, same pay" application, for labour hire workers at a Queensland coal mine, promising it will be the first of many.
A European expatriate who regularly swore at his Australian subordinates in an apparent attempt to spur them to achieve work standards expected in his homeland has lost his adverse action case against his former employer, after a court ruled his behaviour warranted summary dismissal.
A full High Court has refused Catholic school employers leave to appeal a "systemic[ally] importan[t]" finding that employees who resign before a new agreement's retrospective pay rises come into effect are entitled to back pay.
A small not-for-profit organisation with no shortage of valid reasons for dismissing a finance manager who "disappeared" during an audit period has nevertheless been ordered to pay her more than $12,000 compensation after the FWC found its executive director should not have acted as "judge, jury and executioner" by overseeing the entire disciplinary process.
An individual bargaining agent has failed to persuade the FWC that it should not permit Australia's largest private sector company and second-biggest union – both with substantial legal and IR capacity – from engaging external lawyers to defend a bargaining order bid, as negotiations continue to replace its supermarkets deal.