The Fair Work Commission has granted right of entry permits to a union branch secretary who initially failed to disclose that his previous one had been suspended for three months after an altercation with a union member, and to an organiser who visited 90 sites after his last permit expired.
A Federal Circuit Court judge has slammed a barrister who said she was too "busy" to file written submissions in an adverse action case, criticising her conduct as "contemptuous" of his orders and "discourteous" to the court. He also said her involvement in another case might require investigation by "relevant authorities".
A financial controller sacked by a global shipping company will recover more than $1m after a court ruled she was entitled to ten months' notice of termination of her employment and long service leave based on her full salary package.
A court has found that a worker who was asked to look for alternative employment due to his heart condition was dismissed, rejecting his employer's argument that his job ended by "mutual agreement".
In another instance of the FWBC's tougher stance under Nigel Hadgkiss, the inspectorate has begun Federal Court action against 23 workers accused of taking unprotected industrial action at the $1.8 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital project.
The Fair Work Commission has suggested BHP Coal was "kicking a man when he is down" and acting without a "sense of Christian charity" in seeking legal costs from a former employee who unsuccessfully claimed unfair dismissal.
An employer subject to a bullying claim has told the Fair Work Commission that the new laws need a "filtering" mechanism to protect "innocent parties" from their abuse.
The Federal Court has refused to delay the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate's unlawful coercion case against the CFMEU over the 2012 Grocon blockade, finding that the company's contempt charges against the union in the Victorian Supreme Court are not criminal proceedings.
In an unusual postscript to a notorious sham contracting case, an abattoir operator has relied on a Federal Court ruling that it had vigorously opposed to successfully argue that it was the employer of an injured worker, thus avoiding having to pay him more than $150,000 in common law damages.
