The FWC's new anti-bullying jurisdiction is likely to subject the "largely unregulated" workplace investigations industry to long-overdue scrutiny, and might give rise to questions about whether employees can lawfully refuse employer directions to cooperate, according to Maurice Blackburn principal Josh Bornstein.
Former High Court judge Dyson Heydon has told the first sitting of the Coalition Government's royal commission into unions he is heading that its terms of reference are "not hostile to trade unions", while outlining the heavy criminal sanctions that apply to those who breach its rules.
A senior prison officer's long-running bid to keep his job remains alive after he successfully challenged a ruling by a NSW IRC full bench that upheld threats to dismiss him for failing to follow correct procedures in an incident that led to the death of a prisoner.
The Fair Work Commission has rejected another employer application to create a modern enterprise award rather than be bound by a sector-wide modern award.
Oil and gas companies are pushing the federal government to introduce special greenfields agreements lasting more than five years for "major" projects involving at least $50m in capital spending and to boost certainty by giving employers an automatic right to an arbitrated extension of the deals.
The SDA has successfully appealed against fast food and hair & beauty industry employers having greater flexibility in compensating employees for working on public holidays.
An employee who lodged an unfair dismissal claim one day late after initially making a complaint about his sacking to the Fair Work Ombudsman has failed to overturn the FWC's refusal to extend time.
The Fair Work Commission has rejected an anti-bullying application from a paid carer, ruling he was not a "worker" under the new laws, while also outlining other arrangements that would fall outside the jurisdiction.
A five-member full bench of the Fair Work Commission has ruled that employers can validly give extra information to employees at the same time as providing them with a bargaining representation notice, as long as it doesn't form part of the notice.
The Federal Circuit Court has held that a bus company did not take unlawful adverse action against TWU members at a NSW yard, but was not convinced that the measures the union complained of weren't linked to the bargaining round in progress at the time.
