Increasing the small business unfair dismissal definition from 15 to 20 employees by headcount would expose an extra 500,000 workers to inferior protections, while lifting it to 50 would affect almost an additional two million, according to an FWO report that says there is insufficient consensus across the IR spectrum to support any change.
In what stands as the FWC's first substantive scrutiny of gig economy contracts under new laws, an Uber driver is seeking $50,000 compensation and multiple changes after claiming that app malfunctions unfairly shift the burden of lost revenue and that opaque processes for investigating misconduct allegations create a "power imbalance".
The NTEU has claimed a significant win for job security in the tertiary sector, persuading the FWC that the recruitment clause in a sandstone university's agreement favours ongoing casual and fixed-term employees over external candidates when permanent or longer fixed-term roles come up.
The NTEU says Monash University will be liable for millions of dollars in backpay after the Federal Court today found it is required to pay casual tutors for scheduled consultations with students that don't count as part of work "associated" with tutoring.
The Federal Court has overturned a ruling that would have upset the commission-based pay arrangements for stockbrokers and financial advisors, finding an Ord Minnett advisor had been award-free.
In the first jurisdictional objection win for a worker claiming unfair deactivation, the FWC has ruled that Uber and Uber Eats are one and the same, finding a worker can pursue his application because he cumulatively performed delivery and driving work for Uber for more than six months.
In a crucial test case to build on the Closing Loopholes Act's bolstered rights for union delegates, the meat union is seeking to establish that its shop stewards are entitled to address inductions, post on company noticeboards and conduct member meetings in lunch rooms at a massive Teys abattoir near Brisbane.
The ETU says same-job, same-pay orders it is seeking at Chevron's Barrow Island LNG facility in WA could lift wages of labour hire workers by a mammoth $80,000 a year.
A former ATO director who claims sustained bullying and harassment forced her to move to the AEC has failed to establish it constitutes a dismissal, after she used the Public Service Act's voluntary transfer provisions.
