ASX-listed services giant Ventia has achieved a "complete metamorphosis" of a freshly-acquired company's agreement by varying its terms instead of making a new one, in an application that posed an "Aristotelian form and substance problem" for the FWC.
A long-serving One Nation staffer can pursue his unfair dismissal claim, after the FWC accepted that PM Anthony Albanese's post-election decision to pare back the party's staffing "loaded the gun" for his firing under parliamentary employment provisions.
Australia's regulation of precarious workers is "world-leading" and we arguably have "the most progressive industrial relations legislation on the planet", but academics need to rebuild the IR discipline to address its erosion and the rise of human resource management, according to UNSW's Michael Quinlan.
Employment law experts are urging employers to tread carefully in dealing with workers' increasing use of AI to make flexibility requests, respond to investigations and lodge complaints.
CFMEU construction division administrator Mark Irving last year "counselled" then Victorian branch secretary Zach Smith for his "serious error of judgement" in permitting an organiser to meet with underworld figure and "fixer" Mick Gatto, after FWC general manager raised concerns.
NSW Parliament has passed, after accepting amendments, laws to protect the "safety and dignity of workers in the digital age" in part by requiring businesses to help unions inspect their algorithmic systems, with the Minns Government calling for its "leadership" in regulating AI to be extended nationally.
Employment law experts say psychosocial hazards are posing a bigger than expected compliance risk, warning employers to "integrate HR with WHS" to avoid creating unintended safety issues.
The FWC has found that a major warehouse operator did not genuinely make a worker redundant, because it failed to discuss redeployment opportunities with her, including 18 jobs it had vacant at the time of her dismissal.
