Queensland's Supreme Court has made a ruling suggesting that environmental clean-up costs trump employee obligations when companies fail, according to top-tier law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.
Early adopters Sydney Water and the ASU are again making use of the FWC's New Approaches program in negotiations for a new three-year agreement, providing workers with detailed proposals for conditions and pay rises after four days early this month of "interest-based" assisted talks.
Australia's major banks say they will overhaul retail employees' pay structures to reduce the importance of incentives, commissions and variable rewards.
As the FWC calls for submissions on an employer bid to ditch the term "penalty rates" and replace it with "additional remuneration", a senior union-clientele lawyer is warning of a "slippery slope" if recognition of a need to compensate those working unsociable hours is removed.
The Federal Court has ordered a national sales manager to hand over external storage devices to his former employer after a forensic audit of his workplace laptop and email account revealed his secret plan to jump ship and negotiate a move to a competitor.
An FWC full bench has ordered a re-examination of the sacking of a worker for his "nonchalance" towards OHS obligations, lack of contrition after a workplace mishap and failure to wear safety glasses.
Information Commissioner Tim Pilgrim has upheld Australia Post's decision to deny a former worker access to internal documents he sought after allegedly hearing from a HR manager that two senior employees would be disciplined for "inappropriate comments" about him.
The FWC has approved an agreement for 2,000 staffers for members of Federal Parliament, despite union claims it was not genuinely agreed because "voting irregularities" caused by the electronic voting system disenfranchised substantial numbers of workers.
