A court has found no basis for sidelining a lawyer accused of gaslighting a former Workpac employee who claims she lost her placement at Rio Tinto for reporting a colleague's s-xual assault, when her duties involved addressing findings from a s-xual harassment inquiry and a report by former S-x Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.
BHP and Rio Tinto are facing class actions accusing them of failing to protect women who worked for them and their contractors against sexual assault, discrimination and harassment over the past 20 years.
A court has found an employer who was in a relationship with an employee s-xually harassed her when he extorted her into having unwanted intercourse, setting compensation at $25,000, while rejecting her claim he sacked her for falling pregnant.
The FWC has ruled that an intoxicated FIFO female mineworker rubbing up against and trying to hold hands with her male colleagues when commuting to her worksite amounted to harassment and s-xual harassment and warranted BHP dismissing her.
The FWC has found a long-serving BHP Coal worker who had "clearly not adjusted to the modern workplace" s-xually-harassed two colleagues, but a rushed investigative process and lack of a proper opportunity to respond rendered his dismissal unfair.
WA's Cook Labor Government has introduced legislation to lift casual loading from 20% to 25%, give some workers an enforceable right to request flexibility, and empower the IRC to discipline industrial agents, but it continues to lag on portable LSL.
Queensland's Miles Government has secured the passage of legislation to introduce a broad positive duty to eliminate not only sexual harassment and harassment on the basis of s-x, but discrimination and "other objectionable conduct" as far as possible.
Victoria's Allan Labor Government has begun consulting on its plan to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements in settlements of workplace sexual harassment cases.
The FWC has declined to order a worker to stop s-xually harassing a colleague after accepting he regretted his "inappropriate" remark and that the employer would reduce future interaction between the two employees "as much as possible".
Legislation introduced recently to Queensland's Parliament imposes a positive duty that goes beyond the Respect@Work model, adds new protected attributes to the Anti-Discrimination Act and improves protections for workers assaulted on the job, but the State union peak body is disappointed it continues to permit religious bodies to discriminate in employment.
