A State corporation, in the face of medical evidence, lacked the discretion to deny extra sick leave to a worker with a bad leg break that it believed didn't meet the definition of a serious long-term injury, the FWC has found.
The Senate Work and Care inquiry's Labor and Greens majority is urging the Albanese Government to move swiftly to consider a right to disconnect, make flexibility requests an enforceable right and provide "roster justice" by ensuring workers with variable hours have predictability and certainty, in a 152-page interim report tabled this afternoon.
The FWC has held that resource giant South32 unfairly treated some workers it directed to isolate and get tested after identifying them as COVID-19 contacts, ordering it to recredit annual leave, deduct sick leave and pay them for other times as though they were at work.
Just a month after declaring its intention to delete "Schedule X" unpaid pandemic leave provisions, the recent COVID-19 resurgence has spurred the FWC to extend their operation in a handful of health and care awards, coinciding with the Federal Government reviving the pandemic leave disaster payments.
Victoria's Andrews Labor government has committed almost $250 million to fund a two-year Australian-first pilot scheme giving paid sick leave to casual and contract workers in selected industries, while not revealing how it will be funded in the longer-term.
The Victorian Government's Australian-first pilot scheme to provide sick leave to casual and contract workers in selected industries has come under immediate fire from the Coalition and employer groups.
An employer has established it could not have taken unlawful adverse action after admitting it might not have sacked a geotechnician for poor attendance a day after she took personal leave if it knew of her illness.
A diamond retailer held to have sacked a sales manager diagnosed with breast cancer because she planned to take leave to recover from surgery is facing penalties and a compensation bill in the Federal Circuit Court.
ACTU leader Sally McManus has written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison seeking four days paid leave and travel time to facilitate the rapid inoculation of the largely-unvaccinated private sector aged and disability care workforce.
Westpac has introduced special paid leave for employees to get COVID-19 vaccinations after the FSU wrote to financial institutions seeking two days' paid leave for all staff to get shots, while the Commonwealth Bank says it will also allow time off for the purpose.
