The ACTU has asked that a member of the minimum wage review panel stand aside on the grounds of "apprehended bias" after he sat on the Abbott Government's Commission of Audit, which recommended a radical reduction in the pay safety net. Meanwhile, retail super funds have begun legal action against the FWC.
The Federal Court has ruled that the MUA took adverse action against five port workers when it distributed a poster calling them scabs for refusing to take part in a protected strike, finding its contents were worse than defamatory and invited the conclusion that they were "devoid of human dignity".
The NSW Government has had a victory in its long-running battle to include compulsory superannuation increases within the public sector 2.5% wage cap, after the State's Court of Appeal quashed last year's IRC ruling that the wages cap only applied to Commission-awarded increases.
The FWC has acceded to an employer's application for representation by a lawyer, while noting its concern that the ruling could be interpreted as providing an automatic right to representation for companies that argue that their HR managers cannot appear because they are witnesses.
A sex discrimination dispute involving the alleged conduct of a male ship captain towards a female second officer while at sea has again raised the "vexed" question of whether a company's policies are incorporated into its employment contracts.
A labour hire employee who argues that her employer's refusal to give her work unless she agrees to not take legal action is adverse action rather than dismissal has been allowed to amend her general protections claim so that it can go to a hearing.
The Federal Court has taken the unusual step of reversing the interim reinstatement of a DP World union delegate after workers involved in a bullying investigation that preceded his dismissal were the subject of written threats scrawled throughout the workplace, including calling them "c--nts" and "f---heads".
A senior FWC member has strongly endorsed legal representation of parties in hearings, saying that with the rise of self-representation, the involvement of legal practitioners is "more often than not, a welcome relief".
The Fair Work Commission has upheld the RSPCA's dismissal of an executive manager for leaking to the media, providing confidential documents to his union and undermining his chief executive, describing his conduct as "reprehensible" and "duplicitous".
