DEWR has told the Annual Wage Review expert panel at a consultation hearing this morning that while the local economy will "not be immune" if international economic conditions deteriorate as a result of US tariffs and other factors, it expects domestic growth to gradually pick up over this year and 2026.
The FWC has ruled that Coles unlawfully calculated long service leave payments based on a seven-day rather than five-day week, while acknowledging there is "room for debate" on the meaning of an "ordinary working day", particularly for workers with variable rosters.
In a decision illustrating the challenges of conducting cases involving remote Indigenous employers, the FWC has awarded $18,000 to a sacked chief executive after failing to engage the respondent in proceedings despite 14 phone calls, numerous emails and five notices sent by express post.
The RACQ was entitled to sack an employee repeatedly punched in the face by a tow truck driver after attending an accident, a presidential member noting a lawyer's question as to what the worker might reasonably have expected when he pushed someone from an industry not known for its "shrinking violets".
The FWC has pointed to a worker's knowledge of the 21-day deadline for filing general protections claims in declining to allow his late application to proceed, despite finding that responsibility for the delay rested "overwhelmingly" with his lawyers.
The FWC has "reluctantly" found that in focusing only on the positives an employer failed to adequately explain a newly consolidated deal opposed by one branch of the HSU but supported by its embattled Victorian No 1 branch.
In the first full consideration of new powers to order digital platforms to reverse the deactivation of their workers, the FWC has thrown out a former Uber driver's application after clarifying that the minimum six-month qualification period needs to be both recent and largely continuous.
The Fair Work Act's compensation cap has operated inequitably to allow Guzman y Gomez to "benefit from its poor treatment" of a hard-working casual denied shifts while a HR manager maintained she remained employed, a senior FWC member has found.
The FWC has rejected an individual bargaining representative's bid for an intractable bargaining declaration after finding negotiations with a major transport operator have merely "stalled" and are not yet at a stalemate.
A casual Coles worker with limited availability has failed to overturn his sacking following a hiatus of more than three months, but the FWC says the store manager should have taken an additional step before dismissing him.
