Australia can learn from the "disappointing" under-utilisation of Spain's groundbreaking menstrual leave entitlement during its first year, due to fear of discrimination at work and the limitations of its model, according to an employment lawyer.
In a significant decision on paid parental leave, a FWC presidential member has ordered a State-owned public transport provider to backpay a bus driver who claimed to be the primary carer of his newborn son while his wife recovered from an emergency caesarean section.
The FWC has warned employers against giving "generic and blanket HR answers" when they provide their "reasonable business grounds" for knocking back flexibility requests, before ultimately rejecting a bid from a worker with challenging caring responsibilities to continue working entirely from home.
Wilson Security unlawfully denied a FIFO guard proper breaks within roster cycles and made him work an extra 15 unpaid minutes for "handover" at the start of each shift, a court has held, but a manager who reinforced the requirement was not an accessory.
The NSW Parliament has passed legislation providing an industrial manslaughter offence punishable by jail terms of up to 25 years for individuals and fines for companies of up to $20 million - the largest in Australia - along with new laws extending the State's portable long service leave scheme.
FWC President Adam Hatcher has expressed concern about possible confusion arising from the inclusion in all awards of the new right to disconnect outside of working hours, when some awards "specifically contemplate" out-of-hours contact.
The FWC has urged David Jones to improve its retrenchment processes, while opening the way for a long-serving worker to pursue an unfair dismissal case after the department store deemed her unsuitable for redeployment to an area serving "elevated" clientele.
The taxpayer-funded FEG scheme has won court orders putting it in the box seat to claw back more than $600,000 in unpaid wages and entitlements handed out to the former employees of a liquidated company.
The FWC has refused to reduce two FIFO workers' redundancy pay, finding that redeployment offers did not amount to "other acceptable employment" because they were given insufficient time to consider roster changes that would also have reduced their time at home.
The FWC has found a paramedic is not entitled to a living-away-from-home allowance as he chose rather than was directed to undertake additional training his employer provided 200 kilometres from his residence.
