Wesfarmers has avoided having chief executive Richard Goyder put on the witness stand ahead of the FWC later this year hearing Penny Vickers' bid to terminate its 2011 supermarkets agreement, after a full bench accepted that the parent company had no role in approving the retailer's 2014 enterprise deal.
A driver who provided "little more than his labour" to a limousine company that obtained 90% of its work through ride-sharing service Uber has been found to be a worker under workers' compensation laws.
A court has stopped an IT specialist from working for a competitor and encouraging other employees to join him, finding a four-year restraint period reasonable after taking into account that he sold his stake in the company for a "substantial" sum and continued on as a "key employee".
The FWC has identified "deficiencies" in management of redundancies by a mining services company that replaced its employee relief pool with on-hire workers, counselling that it should have given greater consideration to quarantining some positions for redeployees.
The FWC has implored a barrister to urge his client to "at least consider" engaging with employees, after conceding it has no jurisdiction to deal with a dispute over a "double standard" on redundancy packages between blue and white-collar workers.
A warehouse team leader must match wits with Woolworths' in-house HR/IR managers over his unfair dismissal claim after the FWC refused to allow either party legal representation for what it determined was a matter "not complex enough" to involve lawyers or paid agents.
The Federal Court has rejected claims an employer took adverse action against a dentist it threatened to sack for writing "pugnacious" emails, redirecting mail and refusing to attend disciplinary meetings, ruling that the last two actions amounted to him repudiating his employment contract.
In a landmark ruling, an FWC full bench has stopped the Federal Government relying on privileged documents such as Budget papers to argue for its 2% public sector wages cap in a workplace determination.
The NSWIRC has reinstated a corrections officer whose "complacency" led to a high-risk prisoner escaping out a bathroom window, rejecting the employer's contention it no longer felt confident the experienced officer could do his job.
In a case likely to have ramifications for hundreds of existing enterprise deals, the High Court has reserved its decision in Aldi's appeal against a decision knocking out a controversial agreement on the basis it was agreed by prospective employees not yet covered by it.
