In a decision emphasising the importance of independent medical examinations, the FWC has found it was unfair to dismiss a cold storage worker over an inability to endure sub-zero temperatures without first heeding his doctor's advice to trial a reduced workload.
The High Court will next month begin hearing mining giant Peabody's challenge to a full Federal Court finding that it did not genuinely make workers redundant when it failed to consider whether it could redeploy workers to jobs performed by contractors.
Growth in private sector rates of pay is continuing to ease, falling from 3.6% a year in trend terms to 3.3%, while public sector growth has also dropped, according to the ABS.
An accounts manager seeking a month-long extension to lodge an unfair dismissal claim after initially filing a blank form has failed to convince the FWC it was exceptional that she missed the FWC's replies as they landed in her junk mail.
A customer service operator's "pregnancy brain" contributed to her filing a late application contesting her redundancy and was among the factors justifying an extension, the FWC has found.
The FWC has become overly focussed on verifying workers' eligibility for flexible work requests by imposing onerous evidentiary requirements on them, which has limited the effectiveness of its new dispute power, a researcher has told the review panel in her response to its Secure Jobs, Better Pay draft report.
DEWR is consulting on potential changes to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, after finding an increasing number of companies are deliberately using the scheme, designed as a "last resort", to avoid their obligations.
A TWU delegate and rubbish truck driver who drank six beers at a union event but suggested his David Beckham cologne and sanitiser might explain his low-level positive reading for alcohol at work the next morning has failed to overturn his sacking.
After the UFU refused to comply with a FWC order to hand over a trust deed for an income protection scheme, the Federal Court has also ordered the union to produce the document.
