The NSW Government has scrapped contentious proposals in a workers compensation bill to be introduced today requiring employees to secure an IRC ruling before claiming for harassment-related psychological injuries, while adding "excessive work demands" as a new compensable cause.
Just 6% of clerical workers who seek WFH arrangements are knocked back by their employer, according to a new Swinburne University study commissioned by the FWC as part of the work from home test case.
The nurses union says NSW health workers and women will be most disadvantaged by proposed workers compensation changes making it "almost impossible" to claim for psychological injuries, while the NSW Bar Association is urging parliamentarians to reject it and demand a "substantive review".
A FWC bench has emphasised the tribunal's need to properly scrutinise proposed agreements in finding that a senior tribunal member failed to follow principles of open justice when refusing to provide a union with the names of applicants for a mining services deal ultimately found to be a sham.
A retrenched educator who rejected an alternative role because she wanted to keep working from home at least a day a week has lost her severance entitlements, after the FWC found she did not have a formal right to maintain her flexible arrangements.
The SDA has entered into a heads of agreement with the Adelaide-based operator of 20 regional Foodland and IGA supermarkets to potentially settle a class action it values at $4 million on behalf of hundreds of workers.
The FWC has found that a mine superintendent who "supervised supervisors" is not covered by the professional employees award and his pay exceeds the high income threshold, rendering him unable to pursue his unfair dismissal claim.
The FWC has set aside 17 days from October 20 and November 25 for a full bench to hear a major SDA challenge to junior rates in the retail, fast food and pharmacy awards, while Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth has responded to a call to weigh in.
Employers with significant casual workforces have been given a guided tour of new legislative filters for assessing whether proposed deals are genuinely agreed, in a FWC decision focussing on the Fair Work Act's "employed at the time" provision.
The FWC has refused to separate an NBN engineer involved in a dispute over allegedly unpaid hours from a manager held to have bullied him, instead ordering mediation after finding his own behaviour and "pedantic" approach is contributing to his problems.
