In a significant decision on paid parental leave, a FWC presidential member has ordered a State-owned public transport provider to backpay a bus driver who claimed to be the primary carer of his newborn son while his wife recovered from an emergency caesarean section.
In a judgment that casts a harsh light on agreement drafting, a Federal Court majority has described crucial elements of a multinational paint company's since superseded deals as a "jumble of random terms", before quashing a finding that six misclassified warehouse workers had been underpaid.
The Federal Court has this afternoon rejected a Qantas bid for a finding that flight crew union the AIPA unreasonably withheld permission to allocate newly-recruited pilots to its A380 super-jumbos.
In a significant decision on FWC powers, a court has found that the Commission can dig into a university's finding that an academic plagiarised a student's work to establish whether it breached its agreement's disciplinary processes.
The FWC has laid bare the difficulty of running what amount to underpayment cases against universities, finding in a union-run matter that not only did the employer have no system in place to reliably record hours but that the tribunal lacked the power to order compensation anyway.
An employer has failed to win a stay on a FWC decision knocking back its request to be represented by a lawyer, which would have delayed an underpayments case, after a senior member found its agreement only allows representation for those initiating disputes.
Victoria Police rejected a crime scene officer's request for a flexible work arrangement on reasonable business grounds, the FWC has held, while urging the parties to embrace a "better than nothing" compromise.
The FWC has found a paramedic is not entitled to a living-away-from-home allowance as he chose rather than was directed to undertake additional training his employer provided 200 kilometres from his residence.
The FWC has acknowledged there is a "high bar" to overturning management decisions but ultimately found that Ambulance Victoria breached its agreement when it directed a paramedic to perform alternative duties from home while it investigated a colleague's s-xual harassment claims against him.
A FWC full bench has hosed down a commissioner's allegation that a failure to provide a worker 14 hours of "leisure time" bordered on "wage theft", but has upheld his finding that the worker should have received the additional leave.
