Unions have doubled down on objections to an Australian Industry Group draft working-from-home clause proposed for the clerks award, claiming it will create a two-tiered system, confound both employers and workers and violates new penalty rates protections.
As the Albanese Government revealed plans for an AI Safety Institute to harness productivity gains and combat "malign uses" of the new technology, a "confronting" report from the FSU champions the need for a digital "just transition" amid concerns about job security and surveillance in the finance sector.
A four-member FWC full bench has formally put on hold a review of the right to disconnect provisions, due to a paucity of case law, but recent commentary by tribunal president Adam Hatcher and leading labour law academic Andrew Stewart indicate the jury is still out on the reasons for the litigation deficit and the impacts of the reforms.
A court has ordered a labour hire business to pay its former GM a profit share of more than $360,000 after she resigned in protest at not receiving it.
The FWC has ruled that Woodside's agreement does not prevent it sending offshore platform employees to work in Perth when a cyclone hits, but doubts remain about whether such a direction is lawful and reasonable.
The NSW Minns Labor Government has introduced what the Business Council claims is the "most interventionist AI and digital regulation" for employers in the country, while separately reviving a bid to lift the workers' compensation total impairment threshold for psychological injuries.
Victorian employers would need to give employees two weeks' written notice before introducing workplace surveillance under proposed laws that have won in-principle support from the Allan Government, which also this week vowed to offer clearer advice on the use of medicinal cannabis in the workplace.
The FWC has backed Woolworths' summary sacking of a 63-year-old manager found to have s-xually harassed a 29-year-old colleague when he sent her a red lipstick kiss emoji and texted "I love you".
The FWC has taken post-employment restraints into account in finding an underperforming sales manager's dismissal unfair, because while they may have been unenforceable they still reduced his prospects of getting a new job.
The FWC has backed an ASX-listed early education provider's decision to reject a worker's request for flexible arrangements to enable her to keep picking up her children from school each day, instead of moving to a less-accommodating rotating roster.