An employer's failure to give a skipper an opportunity to respond to specific allegations about the circumstances surrounding a charter boat's costly collision with a channel marker did not provide sufficient reason to reverse his dismissal, the FWC has found.
Listed services giant Ventia has been ordered to pay $25,000 compensation after failing to persuade the FWC it had reason to sack a senior employee it claimed divulged commercially sensitive information to its former national hospitality and catering manager over a lunchtime catch-up.
The Federal Court has suppressed a Channel Seven producer's statement of claim and other documents lodged in connection with her general protections claim, saying that releasing details of alleged workplace behaviours would reduce the chances of achieving a mediated outcome by taking a "bargaining chip" off the table.
The FWC has made it clear that HR managers should not inform employees about company policies as a "tick and flick" exercise, finding an employer harshly sacked a worker who had no understanding of his unacceptable behaviour when he bullied a colleague for supposedly "sucking up" to their manager.
In a case that underlines the Commission's challenges in dealing with self-represented parties, a FWC member has refused to step back from hearing an anti-bullying claim, finding that a worker's 18 grounds for recusal, including the "unjust removal" of the worker's advocate from a hearing, had "no logical connection" with any possibility of bias.
In a warning to employers undertaking investigations of workplace complaints, the FWC has ordered a mushroom grower to compensate a former harvest team leader sacked on the basis of "scanty" hearsay evidence and the "sheer number" of allegations about bullying and racial discrimination.
A full Federal Court has found Qube Ports lacked standing to retrospectively vary expired agreements, clearing the way for the CFMEU's maritime division to pursue the stevedoring giant for millions in allegedly wrongly-deducted "gap" payments from up to 1000 wharfies' remuneration.
The majority privately-owned operator of NSW's high-voltage electricity network and unions have until next Monday to agree on terms for a new agreement before handing matters over to a FWC full bench to resolve any outstanding issues via an intractable bargaining determination.
A NDIS provider has refuted allegations it took unlawful adverse action by sacking a worker because of her autism spectrum disorder, with a FWC consent arbitration finding her efforts to rescue a dog and dispose of a client's medication exceeded the scope of her duties.
A FWC full bench comprising the tribunal's three most senior members has issued a same-job, same-pay order sought by an individual on-hire mineworker placed at South32's Cannington silver, lead and zinc mine in Queensland who claimed it would lift his pay and that of hundreds of co-workers by 60%.
