A judge has binned the $7.5 million lawsuit of an academic claiming his "oppressor characteristics" made him a victim of a university's diversity policies, observing that while he might have "a very legitimate gripe", industrial laws are not the platform to advance his crusade against "woke ideology".
The Australian Tax Office has failed to win a transfer to the Federal Court of a deputy commissioner's adverse action claim against it and senior executives including its chief people officer, after his sacking for underperformance.
The FWC has found a cash-in-hand nanny an employee eligible to pursue an adverse action claim, finding that she did not have her own business and the parents of the children she cared for exerted a high degree of control over her work.
The FWC has pointed to a worker's knowledge of the 21-day deadline for filing general protections claims in declining to allow his late application to proceed, despite finding that responsibility for the delay rested "overwhelmingly" with his lawyers.
A major charity engineered the departure of a "serial complainer" after the "intuitively odd" involvement of a specialist IR law firm, a court has found.
In a judgment raising the possibility that State workplace protections could extend to independent contractors under the Fair Work Act, Federal Court Chief Justice Debra Mortimer has today dismissed Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's bid to strike out a freelance pianist's adverse action claim that it discriminated against him by cancelling a performance after he accused Israel of committing war crimes.
An aged care home has been ordered to pay almost $400,000 in damages and penalties to a Chinese nurse summarily sacked after she complained that Filipino co-workers received more favorable treatment.
A Melbourne stockbroking firm and its founder have been hit with compensation orders and penalties totalling more than $600,000, a Federal Court judge also directing them to cover the legal costs of two former advisors forced to defend "fanciful" claims their departure "destroyed" the business.
"Offboarding" a worker and processing her "final pay" before she went on holiday did not amount to a termination of employment, the FWC has ruled, because although the term "superficially" indicates dismissal, the worker failed to consider the circumstances of her labour-hire arrangement.
A pregnant lawyer who filed her adverse action application before her dismissal took effect will get a chance to pursue her claim, after the FWC waived the "irregularity" to save both parties the cost and time involved in dealing with a fresh application that would have been filed late.
