The High Court is poised to consider two significant IR matters next week, beginning with NSW unions' bid to overturn a State law restricting election campaign spending, followed by Qantas seeking special leave to challenge a finding that the airline unlawfully shunned a TWU in-house tender when it outsourced the work of 2000 ground-handlers.
The FWC has found that a worker sacked by the Ubuntu Church for obtaining a COVID-19 vaccination is an employee, clearing the way for her to pursue an unfair dismissal claim.
The FWC has endorsed the consultation process Woolworths used before it rolled-out a group-wide COVID-19 vaccination policy, rejecting a "most unusual" unfair dismissal case in which a worker's social media sprays clashed with his claims that the company left him in the dark.
A senior FWC member has refused to recuse himself for addressing a worker's representative as "mister" in an unfair dismissal case that argued an employer should have permitted an unvaccinated employee to keep working from home during COVID-19 restrictions instead of sacking her.
The FWC has tossed out an unfair dismissal claim from a government lawyer responsible for overseeing safe workplaces, finding he fully understood the seriousness of "wilfully and persistently" refusing to confirm his COVID-19 vaccination status.
The FWC has reinstated a firefighter who refused to provide proof of his COVID-19 vaccination status while on leave, observing that his employer failed to properly read a response indicating he was inoculated before taking a "well-worn disciplinary path" towards dismissal.
A senior FWC member has lambasted an "incompetent" and "belligerent" representative involved in numerous challenges to vaccination-related dismissals, bemoaning that a regulatory gap prevented him from awarding costs against the offending individual.
A Federal Court judge has moved swiftly to shut down a legal representative for 18 airline workers seeking damages for COVID-19 vaccination-related sackings after he sent "obscene [and] threatening" emails to the defendants' lawyers and in-house IR teams.
A FWC member wrongly concluded that he lacked the power to hear the case of a university employee sacked for refusing to comply with COVID-19 vaccination directions, a full bench has found.
The FWC has declined to hear the unfair sacking case of a vaccinated worker who passed up "at least" eight chances to confirm her inoculation status before her employer dismissed then reinstated her within 48 hours.
