A Parmalat worker's compensation and injury manager is seeking reinstatement and maximum penalties against her former employer, alleging the dairy giant took adverse action by sacking her for repeatedly complaining to and about its national health and safety manager.
In a reminder to employers to double-check before assuming a worker has abandoned their employment, a business must pay $7000 to an ex-employee after it withdrew his visa sponsorship over an unexplained three-day absence that turned out to be GP-recommended stress leave.
The first female secretary of SA's firefighters' union says that claims in an Equal Opportunity report that the service is a "boys club" and that the UFU is an impediment to change do not reflect the actions or priorities of the organisation's new guard nor the members that voted it in.
There is "no place for bawdy offensive alpha-male behaviour in the workplace", the FWC has found, in upholding the dismissal of a male worker for asking a female colleague for a kiss and telling another co-worker that he wanted to "f-ck" his sister.
An FWC full bench has given a mental health service volunteer another shot at applying for anti-bullying orders after quashing a finding that, because he was participating in a government-funded program to improve his wellbeing, he was not a "worker" according to the federal WHS Act.
The FWC has castigated an HR department for casting aside its "proper role" when it pursued incorrect allegations and facilitated the unfair dismissal by ambush of a manager it considered an "ongoing management problem".
In a rare case, two former operators of a Canberra massage parlour potentially face up to a year in jail for allegedly providing false or misleading evidence to the FWC.
The peak body for lawyers has taken aim at non-disclosure agreements, vicarious liability and work-related drinking in a submission to the national s-xual harassment inquiry.
A company has been forced to reinstate a long-serving senior executive it sacked more than three years ago following his stoush with an HR manager, while also facing a bill of more than $1 million in back pay, long service leave, penalties and compensation.
In a decision further clarifying the "minor procedural or technical errors" that can be overlooked in approving agreements, the FWC has rejected a deal capturing employees not contemplated at the time bargaining notices were issued, despite their subsequent involvement in voting it up.
