A parliamentary inquiry has recommended the Albanese Government consider amending the Fair Work Act's right to request flexible work to ensure menopausal women can access it, while it also wants reproductive leave added to the NES and awards.
The Health Services Union has won 12 days paid reproductive leave in a deal for about 1600 disability service workers, in a "watershed" development it says could be expanded nationwide, as it bargains to entrench the entitlement in five further agreements.
The FWC's bid to develop an award clause removing impediments to working from home looks to be a slow burn, with a hearing likely next June following a possible employee survey.
The FWC has upheld a law firm's dismissal of a solicitor accused of "gaming" its timekeeping system to boost a junior colleague's billable hours and telling an opposing practitioner his client was a "c-nt".
The FWC has backed the Commonwealth Bank's sacking of an "insubordinate" worker who argued it could not discipline him for pummelling his manager with abusive text messages because he sent them outside of working hours.
FWC president Adam Hatcher will convene a directions hearing next month into the Commission's own-initiative case to develop a "workable" award clause that removes impediments to working from home.
The FWC has extended time for a worker's general protections application after one of its employees gave her "inappropriate" advice, after which she discontinued her initial claims.
The FWC has found that a worker failed to establish an "objective rational connection" between her age and her flexible working request, after she resisted ANZ's hybrid working policy and asked to work 100% from home because of her fear of catching COVID-19.
Legal Aid NSW is calling for the Government to implement a complete ban on restraint of trade clauses for all vulnerable workers, including independent contractors, casual, gig, and employee-like workers, and other workers should receive compensation for non-competes based on a proportion of their income.
