In a significant decision the ETU describes as "deeply troubling", the Federal Court has found full-time agreement-covered FIFO electricians working on a Fortescue mine project do not accrue paid leave during their monthly "rest and recreation" off-swing.
In a shot in the arm for a paramedic transferred 350km away after an investigator found he bullied a female colleague, a full bench has ruled that bullying falls within a "spectrum of seriousness" and ordered the redetermination of whether he engaged in serious misconduct.
A FWC full bench has axed an 11-year-old deal that excluded minimum engagement periods for casuals, finding that it must terminate agreements if their continued operation would be unfair to "any" rather than all covered employees.
The Federal Court has refused to knock out an ETU claim that an employer fraudulently withheld information from the FWC when seeking approval for a new deal, allegedly concealing that the bulk of those voting had been engaged solely to take part in the ballot.
The FWC has refused to resolve a dispute about whether a remote locality allowance should be calculated on travel by road or "as the crow flies", but has determined, based on the parties' intentions, that a new Gladstone depot would not be covered by the allowance because it is "coastal" rather than remote.
The ACT's education department must find an additional $8000 after a court increased penalties for breaching an agreement's job security terms in the case of a former public school teacher claiming she was unlawfully dismissed in 2016.
Catholic school employers have escaped penalties for withholding backpay from two teachers who resigned before new agreements' retrospective pay rises came into effect, a judge finding that the deals' ambiguities contributed to the "honest and reasonable" mistake.
The FWC has refused to confine same-job, same-pay orders at a BHP coal mine to haul truck drivers, because the site's industrial instruments do not use the term and on-hire employees perform various other roles.
In a significant breakthrough for a NTEU excessive workloads case, a FWC full bench has found a university could have breached its agreement by allocating tasks to academics they could not reasonably complete within full-time hours, but it is questioning what, if any, relief would be available.
Marles staffer settles bullying dispute; $70K fine for Qube; Next ECEC "batch" approved; and Public servant protections not reliant on uniforms: Inquiry.