A Parmalat worker's compensation and injury manager is seeking reinstatement and maximum penalties against her former employer, alleging the dairy giant took adverse action by sacking her for repeatedly complaining to and about its national health and safety manager.
The first female secretary of SA's firefighters' union says that claims in an Equal Opportunity report that the service is a "boys club" and that the UFU is an impediment to change do not reflect the actions or priorities of the organisation's new guard nor the members that voted it in.
There is "no place for bawdy offensive alpha-male behaviour in the workplace", the FWC has found, in upholding the dismissal of a male worker for asking a female colleague for a kiss and telling another co-worker that he wanted to "f-ck" his sister.
An FWC full bench has given a mental health service volunteer another shot at applying for anti-bullying orders after quashing a finding that, because he was participating in a government-funded program to improve his wellbeing, he was not a "worker" according to the federal WHS Act.
The peak body for lawyers has taken aim at non-disclosure agreements, vicarious liability and work-related drinking in a submission to the national s-xual harassment inquiry.
Former Queensland assistant health minister Dr Chris Davis has won more than $1.4 million in compensation after a tribunal held that a health service's discriminatory decision to deny him a job because of his political activities and beliefs forced him into early retirement.
A male worker and an employer that pledged to indemnify him after he was accused of sexual assaulting a female colleague have been ordered to jointly pay her $130,000 in damages for pain and suffering and for the company to pay a further $20,000 in aggravated damages, after it conducted a "trenchant defence" of the perpetrator, who took advantage of the young woman after she collapsed at work.
Employers should be subject to a stronger onus to prevent s-xual harassment under the existing positive duty to provide safe workplaces under OHS laws, while the Fair Work Act should be amended to include explicit anti-harassment rights, according to Victoria Legal Aid.
A senior FWC member has flagged a potential "revolution" in the way the tribunal assesses agreements should a full bench review being sought by IR Minister Kelly O'Dwyer find weight must be given to indirect as well as direct discriminatory terms.
IR Minister Kelly O'Dwyer's latest challenge to a contentious, newly-minted Melbourne fire brigade agreement is heading to the FWC for a hearing on Monday, with her bid for a stay order coinciding with the deal's scheduled start date.
