The FWC has awarded $4000 compensation to an allegedly unhelpful IT help desk employee, reminding employers that performance-managing workers is about clear expectations and the steps required to meet them rather than "handholding".
A judge has questioned the FWO's "vigour" in seeking penalties against an "impoverished" dairy business whose owner is already struggling to make $300 weekly instalments to compensate an underpaid worker.
A franchisor chief executive found in June to have engaged in "predatory and grooming" conduct towards a female employee 40 years his junior has now been ordered to pay her more than $72,000 in damages.
The NSW Industrial Court has found that a worker who started out as a "volunteer trainee" had been an employee and should have been paid, because he worked regularly and "meaningfully contributed" to the business.
In a significant decision on calculating compensation for unfairly dismissed workers, a FWC full bench has held that the tribunal should not have reduced a worker's payout to factor in income received months after her anticipated earnings period.
The FWC has ordered an alpine resort operator to pay $14,000 to a former general manager sacked over allegations he covertly overpaid his partner and allowed staff to drive company vehicles while drunk or high on drugs.
In a decision shining a light on real-world tensions in applying workplace safety policies, the FWC has reinstated a 67-year-old bottle shop attendant sacked after she feigned closing a roller door to spur a "swarm" of thieves to leave the store.
A court has affirmed that a law firm could treat an employee's silence as acceptance to being "furloughed" without pay during the coronavirus pandemic, rejecting his second-round bid to recoup about $50,000 via a small claims application.
The first test case for the delegates' rights provisions legislated by the Albanese Government is set to be heard in the Federal Court in Brisbane next week.
