Only a quarter of scientists who sought assistance from HR after experiencing bullying or intimidation found them supportive, while 39% found HR "useless" and 19% said they "actively made things worse", according to a survey conducted by Griffith University academics.
The FWC has thrown out a gym attendant's bid for anti-bullying orders, but not before giving his former employer Spotless some advice on how to better respond to complaints and not "overstep" the mark when restricting the reporting of safety concerns.
A lawyer who failed to follow "the most basic of instructions" during FWC proceedings and proved to be "exceptionally difficult to deal with", experienced reasonable management action rather than bullying when DEWR raised issues about his tardiness, falling asleep in meetings and delays in producing work.
Deputy PM Richard Marles' chief of staff today called for changes to practices used by the new Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, as she launched an adverse action claim against him and the PM's chief of staff over alleged bullying and victimisation within her workplace.
In a case that underlines the Commission's challenges in dealing with self-represented parties, a FWC member has refused to step back from hearing an anti-bullying claim, finding that a worker's 18 grounds for recusal, including the "unjust removal" of the worker's advocate from a hearing, had "no logical connection" with any possibility of bias.
In a warning to employers undertaking investigations of workplace complaints, the FWC has ordered a mushroom grower to compensate a former harvest team leader sacked on the basis of "scanty" hearsay evidence and the "sheer number" of allegations about bullying and racial discrimination.
Misinterpretation of "curt or abrupt" messages between a remote manager and worker and "unhelpful" accusations of "frivolous and vexatious" complaints did not amount to bullying, but the manager might have needed support to better supervise his remote team, the FWC has found.
Shadow workplace relations minister Michaelia Cash has quizzed FWC general manager Murray Furlong on a "potentially serious" bullying or harassment allegation involving a tribunal member, and has questioned the ability of a former gang member to retain his entry permit while facing criminal charges.
A FWC member has permitted an anti-bullying hearing to go ahead despite her concerns that the worker and her representative misled the tribunal when they denied that the worker had accepted a job offer.
The FWC has backed a global company's HR processes after dismissing a senior employee's claim that she had no option but to resign when an investigation rejected her portrayal of a male colleague asking her to "get the coffees" during a client workshop as s-xual harassment.
