The FWC has delayed a board chair's urgent anti-bullying hearing until next month, amid concerns that the regional development board's attempt to sideline her is "usurping the role" of the responsible federal minister "as only the minister has the authority to suspend the chair".
The FWC will start consultations this month on the statement of principles to underpin the Secure Jobs Act's less "prescriptive" approach to considering whether enterprise deals have been genuinely agreed, which it is required to finalise by early June.
In finding a worker with an oral contract an independent contractor, the FWC has affirmed that the principles of Personnel Contracting apply whether the contract is written, oral or some combination and has suggested that the previously-used "multifactorial approach" didn't necessarily cause "chaos", but created "legal and commercial uncertainty".
IR Minister Tony Burke met with unions numerous times in the first 100 days in his portfolio and had far more meetings scheduled with the BCA ahead of the Jobs and Skills Summit than with any other employer or business group, according to diary entries released in response to a FOI request.
The CFMMEU's mining energy division looks likely to be able to proceed with its plans to demerge from the broader union, after the parties reached a peace deal.
Woolworths has told the Senate work and care inquiry that 37.4% of its casuals accepted offers to convert from casual to permanent, which chair Barbara Pocock says is much higher than the committee has otherwise heard.
BHP Minerals has failed to establish that almost $20,000 in education assistance it paid to a mining engineer pushed him above the high income threshold for unfair dismissal protection, after it chose not to exercise its right to recoup the payments.
The FWC will permit a security company to use telephone recordings of worker's allegedly "extremely offensive" conversations with colleagues in defending his unfair dismissal claim, finding it in line with telecommunications interception laws and surveillance clauses in his contract.
A FWC full bench has overturned the approval of the Mantle Group's Hot Wok agreement, accusing it of "deliberate manipulation of the statutory process of making enterprise agreements" and is considering referring the company's senior HR manager to the AFP for potential criminal prosecution for deliberately providing false or misleading information to the tribunal.
