In a judgment that casts a harsh light on agreement drafting, a Federal Court majority has described crucial elements of a multinational paint company's since superseded deals as a "jumble of random terms", before quashing a finding that six misclassified warehouse workers had been underpaid.
The FAAA has extended the tentacles of its SJSP test case against Qantas labour suppliers, bringing an application against a third labour hire company, while the parallel test case against BHP Coal has been pushed back after unions sought extra time for their submissions.
The FWC is seeking feedback on a suite of resources, including video and animated explainers, about its new functions for regulated workers and businesses in the gig economy and road transport industries.
The FWC has warned employers against giving "generic and blanket HR answers" when they provide their "reasonable business grounds" for knocking back flexibility requests, before ultimately rejecting a bid from a worker with challenging caring responsibilities to continue working entirely from home.
The Federal Court has again intervened to turn down the heat in a continuing bargaining stoush between the CFMEU and the head contractor for Queensland's $7 billion Cross River Rail project, giving the union until Thursday to challenge orders imposing 15-metre no-go zones around sites and prohibiting the filming of workers crossing picket lines.
Interested parties have a week to provide feedback on a FWC full bench's provisional casual employment clauses for modern awards, deemed "necessary to resolve potential uncertainty and difficulty in interactions" between existing award provisions and Closing Loopholes changes that take effect on August 26.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has appointed former Justice Department secretary Greg Wilson to examine the State's construction sector and help eradicate its "rotten culture", including by boosting its ability to weed out criminal activity and protect whistleblowers.
A transport company sacked a manager when it failed to specify it would not pay out his notice period if he accepted an offer to leave early following his resignation, the FWC has found.
The Coalition has confirmed plans to deregister the CFMEU and reintroduce aspects of its Ensuring Integrity Bill if it wins the next federal election, while committing to introduce legislation next month to re-establish the ABCC.
Interested parties have two weeks to provide feedback on the FWC's approach to implementing new powers concerning right to disconnect stop orders and disputes, including a proposal to initially send all such applications to a full bench.
