In the first real IR test of the post-July 1 Senate's precarious balance of power, Palmer United Party senators voted with their Coalition colleagues last night to preserve, by one vote, the rights of the WA government and third parties to ask the Fair Work Commission to terminate damaging industrial action.
Employees are not entitled to bring a support person to a meeting to investigate a workplace incident that might result in dismissal, a FWC full bench has ruled in overturning the reinstatement of a long-serving forklift driver.
A Fair Work Commission full bench has upheld a decision to refuse a Queensland building union official an entry permit, while a senior member has stayed the suspension of permits for 12 other officers.
In two separate decisions, the Fair Work Commission has ruled that it has the power to arbitrate on the use of mobile phones at BHP Coal's Bowen Basin mines and that a tram driver was unfairly sacked after being accused of using his phone while on the road.
A former CFMEU construction and general division organiser has told the Heydon Royal Commission this afternoon that one of the inquiry's witnesses pulled a gun on him when he entered a construction site to complain about safety standards.
A Toll employee who intimidated a drug and alcohol testing technician and maintained he was medically unfit to attend meetings with management about his behaviour was validly dismissed, the Fair Work Commission has found.
A court has rejected a discrimination complaint from an indigenous graduate employee of the former DEEWR, after accepting that the department's prompt, reasonable and informal response to a racially offensive remark should have ensured the employee wasn't injured in the enjoyment of her work.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz says that no formal decision has been made to create an appeal jurisdiction for the Fair Work Commission, despite Prime Minister Tony Abbott flagging his personal support for the plan.
