A WA law firm will have to defend a restricted legal practitioner's underpayment and unfair dismissal claims after it failed to convince the state's IRC that he was an independent contractor, with the tribunal finding that only common law employees can be engaged in such roles.
An HR manager who engaged in a "concerted campaign" against her employer's interests, openly compiling a dossier about it and exceeding her authority by initiating a colleague's redundancy, has failed to win back her job.
The FWC on rehearing a yard hand's dismissal application has observed his employer's lack of HR expertise did not wash as an excuse for the "disgraceful and grossly unfair" sacking, but slashed compensation due to his vulgar language and propensity to snap when frustrated.
The FWC has chastised an employer for failing to abide by "industrial fair play" when it neglected to tell a worker it would seek to slash his redundancy payment if he didn't accept an alternative role.
The Federal Court has upheld Qantas' right to refuse access to documents sought over a "leave burn" program for aircraft engineers, in a decision a union leader says raises the bar for entering workplaces to prove breaches.
In a significant decision affecting those in temporary government roles, the FWC has found a Federal department failed to recognise it was dismissing a "non-ongoing" employee when it informed him that repeated instances of disrespectful behaviour meant he would not be offered further work.
The FWC has given short shrift to union applications for a protected action ballot at Kimberly-Clark Australia, finding a cancelled meeting and a week's delay in securing a new date cannot be construed as being obstructive.
