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.
The Federal Court has given a media company until next month to change its defence against an article that allegedly carries the defamatory imputation that a university professor created or fostered a toxic workplace culture of bullying and fear.
The new head of Safe Work Australia has called for better management of "psychosocial" hazards in the workplace on the back of escalating mental health compensation claims.
A Clive Palmer-owned business must pay a worker almost $40,000 for dismissing him by email along with 125 other employees, claiming he failed to work his hours amid site-wide fraud, theft and dishonesty,, and then asking him to re-apply for his job 20 minutes later.
