A court has given a publicly-listed veterinary pharmaceutical company the go-ahead to pursue its former chief executive for a significant portion of more than US$400,000 paid to settle assault and s-x discrimination cases brought by two members of its marketing team.
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in her report of the national inquiry into sexual harassment has recommended the FWC gain new powers to issue orders to halt the conduct, similar to its ability to make anti-bullying orders.
The FWC has upheld Star Casino's sacking of a food and beverage server who said he tapped a colleague's bottom in an act of comradery, accused three workmates of entrapping him and threatened to "raise hell" for his employer.
A full Federal Court has today, in declaring a Boral subsidiary vicariously liable for the 2009 s-xual harassment of a plywood grader, described a judge's six-year delay in delivering a contrary finding as bringing the justice system "into disrepute".
The FWC has found that it "reflects poorly indeed" on a printing company if it did not investigate sexual harassment complaints an unfairly dismissed female employee made to HR, while it has also referred the employer's "contemptuous" failure to comply with an order to attend the Commission to the tribunal's general manager for further action.
The Federal Court has ordered costs against a CSIRO scientist who falsely accused colleagues of s-xual harassment and discrimination, while also fining the agency for a complaint-handling failure it sought to "trivialise".
In a decision pointing out the multiple failures of an upmarket Adelaide supermarket to properly handle a juice bar worker's complaint that "the chef just touched my arse", a tribunal has ordered the company and her former colleague to jointly pay her $30,000 in damages.
A full Federal Court is today probing whether a judge's six-year year delay in issuing a decision on a sexual harassment case led him to overlook the credit of witnesses and skimp on analysis as he "succumbed to the psychological attraction of a simple conclusion".
The AWU has hit back at a Federal Circuit Court claim in which its former WA branch vice president is accusing the union of sacking her because she complained about alleged sexual harassment.
Retailers and aviation industry employers are being urged to improve efforts to stamp out workplace sexual harassment and better handle complaints amid AHRC and Qantas surveys confirming that the vast majority of incidents continue to go unreported.
