A court has found a husband and wife who performed largely home-based clerical work exclusively for one business before their services were further outsourced were employees rather than contractors because the company had an "undoubted authority to control" the relationship.
The FWC has accepted that BHP Billiton's sacking of a worker who raised his safety visor to get a better look at an exploding smelter at a uranium mine was justified but harsh, stopping short of reinstatement, though, because of the company's "rational" loss of trust and confidence in him.
An FWC full bench has quashed a ruling that upheld Woolworths' sacking of a petrol station employee for failing to follow its armed hold-up protocol when he refused to hand over money and cigarettes to an unarmed but "difficult" customer.
Employer's text didn't dismiss employee; Correct ABN speeds application amendment; Bench clears way for challenge to authority on fixed-term contracts.
Catholic school employers have failed to convince the FWC to refer to a full bench its challenge to the right of NSW and ACT teachers to take protected action on the basis their dioceses are not "single interest employers" as required by the Fair Work Act.
The FWC has reaffirmed its jurisdictional ambit to determine right-of-entry disputes after an employer questioned whether it was seeking to exercise judicial powers it does not possess.
An FWC member has observed that a business with more than 40 employees "is large enough to warrant a HR manager and a HR officer" in a case where an employer sought leave to challenge its own HR manager's recollection of events.
The long-serving 65-year-old manager of one of the country's largest non-profit community legal centres has won her job back, with a 20% pay hike, after the FWC found the organisation's management committee deliberately designed a restructuring process to scuttle her candidacy.
