The FWC's youngest member has told a welcome ceremony how her 20-year journey to the tribunal began as a teenager when she successfully hauled her employer to court to recover six months of unpaid wages.
After more than 30 years leading CPSU Victoria, Karen Batt appears to have been toppled by challenger Jiselle Hanna, in the first contested ballot in two decades.
The FWC has refused to extend time for a worker who attempted to file his unfair dismissal claim two hours before the deadline, finding that by waiting until the last minute, he risked encountering technical difficulties.
The FWC has ordered reinstatement for a professor who sent "intimate and romantic" messages to a student, including a photo of himself in his boxers, finding that his seven-year unblemished record since his recently-uncovered relationship mitigated his behaviour.
A worker who threatened his managers that he would set bikies on them and that he had "a bullet with your name on it" resigned in the "heat of the moment" and should have been given the chance to retract it, but the FWC has upheld his dismissal because his menacing behaviour amounted to serious misconduct.
A HR manager opportunistically accused a disgruntled employee of leaking confidential information to "put the blow-torch" to him over his dogged pursuit of underpayments, a court has found.
The FWC has refused to reduce a worker's 16-week redundancy payment after finding that when it comes to determining whether an employer has offered "other acceptable employment", assisting with identifying alternatives "falls short" of procuring a new role.
In a judgment that will ripple through a FWC case considering the way homecare, disability and social workers are paid for shifts immediately before or after sleepovers, the Federal Court has rejected FWO arguments that penalty rates should apply.
The FWC has restored MUA Sydney branch secretary Paul Keating's entry permit four years after he failed the fit and proper person test, accepting that his arrest for taking part in a peaceful Gaza protest did not sully his clean industrial record in the intervening period.
