A senior FWC member has declined to step aside from hearing a resuscitated case involving the Commission's own email fail, covert recordings, a threat to kill and an alleged extortion attempt.
The Qantas Group will require all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 after receiving encouragement from a survey sent to 22,000 employees.
IR Minister and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash says a meeting this morning between government agencies, employers and unions will focus on how businesses can comply with COVID-19 work, health and safety obligations, "including without mandating the vaccine".
The FWC has criticised the lawyers of an unfair dismissal applicant and his former employer for "point scoring" conduct falling foul of professional conduct rules, while rejecting the latter's costs bid and claim it did not sack the worker despite announcing his redundancy.
The FWC has called out a union bargaining representative for his "unexplained" change of heart about in-person voting for a new deal occurring during a COVID-19 lockdown, noting that his opposition only surfaced after the non-appearance of two holidaying workers helped it get up by a slim margin.
An academic's $2 million adverse action case against a university's HR department has been transferred to the Federal Court, a judge observing that its outcome has "significant" implications for the tertiary sector's ability to scrap tenured positions funded by endowments.
A digital marketer has been cleared to pursue her adverse action claim after the FWC dismissed an employer's contention that her billed hours exceeded those reasonably expected of a "millennial with quick reflexes".
A FWC member has declined to recuse herself from hearing the unfair dismissal claim of a public servant accused of staging a workplace fall, rejecting accusations she prejudged the worker as guilty and aggressively pushed her to accept a settlement.
A court has accepted that it should impose a reduced underpayment penalty on an employer and its director because last year's extended coronavirus lockdown in Melbourne significantly reduced the size and financial resources of the business.
