Howard Government to restructure HREOC, amend disability discrimination laws; Qantas purchaser seeks to reassure employees; and Investigation launched into alleged breaches by nursing recruiters.
Gossip in a Queensland police station about a colleague's marriage and the mocking-up of her honeymoon photograph in an office joke book amounted to unlawful sexual discrimination, the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Tribunal has found.
The UK's Equal Opportunities Commission has recommended the extension of "right to request" laws to all workers, while the Blair Government is considering expanding their coverage to all working parents.
The 21-day time limit for lodging unfair and unlawful termination applications to the AIRC depends on the date that workers are notified of their dismissal, a full bench has decided.
Probationary periods for unfair termination applications restart when workers are transferred in a transmission of business unless specifically agreed otherwise, according to an AIRC decision.
A private arbitration of parts of a proposed collective agreement for ACT public school teachers has decided on an 11.5% pay rise over three years, plus a cap on face-to-face teaching in secondary schools of 19 hours per week averaged over 12 months.
A soft drink company has been ordered to pay $8,500 for discriminating against a worker with a visual impairment by excessively reducing his hours after receiving medical safety advice.
New Productivity Commission research shows that Australia's workforce participation rate is the fifth highest in the developed world - much higher than is generally understood - but that matching world's best practice in poor-performing demographics would expand the nation's labour force by more than 600,000.
The ALP is planning to restore policies from the AIRC's family provisions test case ruling, including giving parents the right to request an extension of unpaid parental leave to two years and giving new parents' the right to request part time employment on returning to work, at its national conference in April.
In the first full bench ruling on the application of the "genuine operational reasons" exemption for unfair dismissal claims, Village Cinemas has won an AIRC appeal to throw out a claim by a long-serving former manager it made redundant last year.
