A Federal Court majority has today dealt a hammer blow to NSW's and Victoria's pursuit of employers alleged to have avoided long service leave entitlements to casuals, ruling that a tribunal's reading of the Fair Work Act's LSL provision produced an "absurdity" whereby employers received "no warning" they could be held criminally liable for supposed non-payments.
The Federal Court has rejected a Federal Circuit and Family Court attempt to transfer a university technician's adverse action case because it lacks the resources to hear the claim, which in part argues his PhD activities constituted employment.
A court has penalised an experienced HR manager held to have humiliated a worker by speaking only to her husband about whether she was quitting and seizing on the first chance to get rid of her to avoid a bullying and harassment case, while the employer faces a near-$100,000 payout.
FIFO workers employed on a remote LNG project a decade ago stand to split more than $850,000 after pursuing payment for the time it took to be bussed from their crib hut to a security gate at the end of each shift.
The clothing company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands has been ordered to pay a former employee almost $25,000 in compensation and damages after failing to persuade a judge it didn't sack her for complaining about her workload, "unrealistic" deadlines and a colleague's behaviour.
Employsure has rejected a sales worker's claims that it subjected him to discrimination, bullying and coercion after he applied for parental leave and challenged a claimed unilateral downgrading of employees' conditions, and says it does not know how a record he kept of his treatment came to be destroyed.
The Australian Electoral Commission is prosecuting the CFMMEU over posters that criticised sitting Federal Labor MP and former ACTU president Ged Kearney in the lead-up to last year's Federal election.
The Federal Court is continuing to order CFMMEU officials to pay penalties out of their own pockets, rejecting arguments that two first offenders and one organiser no longer employed by the union should have their fines suspended.
A full Federal Court has more than halved fines imposed on the CFMMEU for picketing a crane company over a sacked delegate, while also binning orders requiring the delegate to personally pay a $3500 penalty despite it not being part of the case against him.
The heads of the RTBU Victorian branch's tram and bus division and its locomotive division are suing Victorian branch secretary Vik Sharma over union election material excluding candidates on their ticket, seeking orders to repay nearly $33,000 in publishing costs to the rail operations division.
