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.
The Federal Court has rescinded a windfall for three emergency-call operators who stood to be reimbursed for years of unpaid mentoring allowances, after determining a lower court failed to account for training payments already made under the governing agreements.
Workplace Relations Minister Senator Murray Watt will weigh into a gender undervaluation award review case to make it clear the wages of affected workers must not go backwards, after the ASU warned proposed changes to the community and disability sector award might leave some workers up to $700 a week worse off.
A law firm that forced a solicitor to work "self-evidently excessive" hours and "deprived her of any form of personal autonomy or agency without any rational justification" has been ordered to pay her $50,000 in fines and interest.
The FWC has found it "fanciful" to suggest that an employer might allow a HR professional to send extensive confidential information to his personal email address without authorisation, ruling his serious misconduct warranted dismissal.
A tribunal has pilloried a government department's efforts to fill a vacancy after observing that a senior nurse encouraged to apply had the role plucked away from her following the "catastrophic collision" of three internal processes.
"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.
The FWC has rejected an individual bargaining representative's bid for an intractable bargaining declaration after finding negotiations with a major transport operator have merely "stalled" and are not yet at a stalemate.
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.
Queensland's Industrial Court has upheld a finding that an investigator's report and a lawyer's advice on a senior Office of IR employee's conduct attracted legal professional privilege and the employer did not waive it.
