The Victorian Government and the HSU have agreed to conciliation in the AIRC of their bargaining dispute in which work bans by allied health professionals have delayed patient discharges and cancelled out-patient appointments.
Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has barred the federal public sector from offering take-it-or-leave-it AWAs, but has stopped short of barring the individual contracts altogether.
A NSW Roads and Traffic Authority employee who was sacked for unauthorised computer use has been awarded $7,000 in compensation, but has lost her bid for reinstatement.
Agencies in the Australian Public Service need to streamline their recruitment processes to reduce the "excessive" average time of 88 days taken to hire new employees, according to Australian Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs.
An employer who dropped his trousers and discussed sexual matters at work has been ordered to pay $3,000 to compensate a female marketing employee for offence and embarrassment.
AWA lodgements surged to a new high in November, seemingly lending credence to union claims that employers are rushing to lock in the individual deals before the Rudd Government abolishes them. The flood of AWAs has worsened the Workplace Authority's backlog, which has now reached almost 150,000 agreements and on current trends won't be cleared until at least the third quarter of 2008.
The NSW Supreme Court has today ordered a sacked project manager to pay $1.65m in damages plus legal costs to his former employer and three of its directors for sending defamatory emails to the company and to the World Bank.
Transport giant Toll has lost an appeal against a tribunal ruling that it pay $25,000 in damages for racial discrimination against a Muslim former employee who was called "bombchucker" and "Osama Bin Laden" by work colleagues.
An employer who indirectly discriminated against an injured mechanic by dismissing him when he was on indefinite sick leave has been ordered to pay him $4,418 in compensation.
The SDA says a successful unlawful dismissal case that took 18 months and cost $50,000 highlights the injustice of the Work Choices unfair dismissal regime for workers in companies employing fewer than 100 employees, and underlines the need for the incoming Rudd Government to immediately reintroduce a "fair and balanced" system.
