Working from home arrangements have been a big success in the Australian Public Service, with a mere handful of disputes about flexible work requests, the CPSU has told a Senate inquiry into a bill aimed at enshrining WFH rights.
The FWC has ruled that a Civmec electrical engineer who rejected an alternative role has no entitlement to a redundancy payment, finding the employer adequately explained its offer despite its "clumsy and at times misguided" approach.
In a default judgment, a federal court has ordered the UAE consulate to pay an Australian worker almost $205,000 in penalties, compensation, interest and costs for s-x discrimination and adverse action, after her employer forced her to br-astfeed in a storeroom, store her milk in a suitcase filled with ice, and denied her unpaid parental leave, before dismissing her.
The FWC has made tart observations about relying on no-win, no-fee lawyers and agents in refusing to extend time by seven months for a worker allegedly unfairly sacked for disclosing a medicinal cannabis prescription for pain relief.
Universities should be required to set targets and report on measures to boost diversity in leadership and governance roles, with "cultural load" allowances also recommended, in a major AHRC study revealing one in five academic staff have suffered direct racism.
Employers should be required to consider compensating or giving additional leave to workers who are unable to work from home, to offset savings remote workers make on commuting costs, a police union has told the inquiry into the Greens' WFH Bill.
The FWC has awarded more than $30,000 compensation to a "frazzled" truck driver sacked after admitting to smoking a joint a few days before returning a positive roadside test result.
A FWC member who ordered a meatworker's reinstatement wrongly discounted as hearsay evidence that he allegedly called his Pacific Islander colleagues "tree apes" and "black c-nts", a full bench has found.
Now is the time to consider the effects of introducing humanoid robots into the workforce, taking heed of the gaps the AI transition has exposed and minimising the detrimental impact on workers, an academic says.
