Queensland police officers have failed to convince a Queensland IRC full bench that the Police Commissioner failed to consult them on a COVID-19 vaccine workforce mandate or lacked power to issue it, but the State's Supreme Court has opened the way for another challenge.
IR Minister Michaelia Cash will raise with FWC President Iain Ross a LinkedIn post by maverick Deputy President Lyndall Dean that endorses criticism of Australia's "Chinese-style totalitarian" health response to COVID-19, she told a Senate Estimates hearing this morning.
The MUA has accused Patrick of "bullying" after the stevedore yesterday applied to the FWC to terminate its nominally-expired union deal to break a 20-month bargaining deadlock amid a round of strikes at its container terminals in four states.
The Federal Court has given a self-represented worker a chance re-plead a race discrimination case against CIMIC Group subsidiary UGL after painstaking analysis of his "discursive" statements of claim led to the bulk being struck out or summarily dismissed.
The FWC has ordered a chief executive to compensate his ex-wife $27,000 for unfairly sacking her from their start-up, finding he used the COVID-19 downturn to "disguise" her dismissal as a redundancy soon after they separated.
A court has thrown out an FWO underpayment case on behalf of four delivery drivers it argued were employees rather than independent contractors, the judge narrowly finding that all parties intended to operate at arm's length when originally formalising their relationship.
In a ruling reinforcing the wisdom of heeding FWO compliance notices, an online directory and its director have despite pleas they would be "crippled" been fined more than $18,000 for failing to rectify underpayments on time.
COVID-19 drove the FWC to conduct almost 70% of its proceedings remotely in 2020-21 and to convene a working group with similar institutions to advance virtual proceedings and develop a justice-friendly version of Microsoft Teams, according to the umpire's annual report, which also notes a further improvement in agreement approval times.
The Fair Work Ombudsman increased its use of compliance notices by 113% in 2020-21, as it sought to quickly rectify underpayments instead of taking action in the courts, while it has nevertheless ramped up its legal action by more than 40% and set up a dedicated branch to pursue corporate misconduct.
A Labor/Greens-majority secure work Senate inquiry is calling on the Morrison Government to require federally-funded entities, including universities, aged care and disability services, to give preference to direct, permanent jobs.
