A multinational company was entitled to dismiss an employee for sending commercial-in-confidence emails to a former co-worker preparing legal action over alleged bullying by its HR manager, the FWC has found.
The FWC has highlighted the pitfalls for workers who opt to resign rather than risk reputational damage from being sacked, in a case in which it says it would have deemed any dismissal unfair.
In a case likely to test whether an employer can argue one of a position's inherent requirements is not to publicly attack a business partner, a former manager will claim Cricket Australia took adverse action by sacking her for tweeting criticism of the Tasmanian Liberal Party's abortion policies.
Former union leader Julie Bignell is among of a group of senior elected officials and employees of Together Queensland who have complained to the ROC and privacy commissioner over alleged unlawful and unauthorised covert in-house surveillance of their emails and keystrokes during a protracted merger process completed three years ago.
In an important ruling on out-of-hours conduct, the FWC has found that an employer didn't need to receive a complaint before investigating then sacking a worker for sharing a p--nographic video via social media with friends who included 19 male and female work colleagues.
The FWC has found a Coles Supermarkets baker who texted explicit images to a manager who responded "great d--k pic" did not sexually harass him as he appeared to initially take them as "a joke", but the tribunal has upheld his dismissal as his behaviour breached the retailer's code of conduct.
A Lorna Jane employee with a pre-existing personality disorder has failed in her $570,000 bid to hold the retailer liable for a manager's Facebook spray and alleged bullying she claimed triggered her condition.
The AMWU is accusing Unilever of seeking to "gag" Streets workers from using social media to vent their frustration at plans to terminate an enterprise agreement at a Sydney ice cream plant.
Restrictions on APS employees posting anti-Government messages on social media under new guidelines could lead to workers unwittingly exposing themselves to sanction as policies shift on issues such as marriage equality, according to an IR academic.
