The ACCI is urging employers to ratchet up workplace COVID-19 vaccinations after the Morrison Government agreed to cover compensation claims for the most serious adverse reactions.
Unions and employers are embracing the use of rapid antigen testing as it ramps up in some industries, but questions remain around cost, access, administration and how it should fit with other measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission at work.
Qantas has today reported a massive coronavirus-driven net loss of about $1.7 billion for the 2020-21 financial year and has revealed it has now cut 9400 jobs - some 900 more than expected.
Resources giant BHP has told a WA parliamentary inquiry that it has terminated six employees for sexual assault and 48 for sexual harassment in its mining operations across the State over the past two years, while Rio Tinto has substantiated one sexual assault and 29 sexual harassment cases in its WA FIFO operations since the start of last year.
The Qantas Group will require all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 after receiving encouragement from a survey sent to 22,000 employees.
IR Minister and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash says a meeting this morning between government agencies, employers and unions will focus on how businesses can comply with COVID-19 work, health and safety obligations, "including without mandating the vaccine".
Fruit processor SPC has today hit back at union criticism of its plan for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination of employees, citing the general legal obligation of employers to provide a safe workplace.
A Federal Court judge has set a limit on the construction watchdog's use of anti-picketing laws to bring unions to heel, observing that "while picketing involves obstruction, not every obstruction is a picket".
The FWC has redrawn an employer's "line in the sand" over the use of mobile phones while driving forklifts, ordering it to reinstate and compensate a worker after concluding he was harshly sacked for a first safety policy breach.
