A full Federal Court has cast doubt over a $40 million underpayments case after ruling that a FWC presidential member and a bench led by president Adam Hatcher failed to properly consider an employer's arguments about the improbability of penalty rates not already being wrapped up in loaded rates paid under two agreements.
In a significant decision the ETU describes as "deeply troubling", the Federal Court has found full-time agreement-covered FIFO electricians working on a Fortescue mine project do not accrue paid leave during their monthly "rest and recreation" off-swing.
The Federal Court has rescinded a windfall for three emergency-call operators who stood to be reimbursed for years of unpaid mentoring allowances, after determining a lower court failed to account for training payments already made under the governing agreements.
The UFU has failed to convince the FWC that Fire Rescue Victoria used a procedurally unfair process when it suspended two workers, after Victoria's anti-corruption body found they accessed private work emails at Victorian branch secretary Peter Marshall's request.
The FWC has refused to resolve a dispute about whether a remote locality allowance should be calculated on travel by road or "as the crow flies", but has determined, based on the parties' intentions, that a new Gladstone depot would not be covered by the allowance because it is "coastal" rather than remote.
The ACT's education department must find an additional $8000 after a court increased penalties for breaching an agreement's job security terms in the case of a former public school teacher claiming she was unlawfully dismissed in 2016.
Catholic school employers have escaped penalties for withholding backpay from two teachers who resigned before new agreements' retrospective pay rises came into effect, a judge finding that the deals' ambiguities contributed to the "honest and reasonable" mistake.
In a significant breakthrough for a NTEU excessive workloads case, a FWC full bench has found a university could have breached its agreement by allocating tasks to academics they could not reasonably complete within full-time hours, but it is questioning what, if any, relief would be available.
In a decision upending unions' understanding of what constitutes the base rate of pay under the pilots award and undoing an underpayments claim, the FWC has held that it does not include general wage-related allowances even where they form part of the minimum payment.
