A resources company must pay almost $1.6 million in damages and interest to its former managing director, who it dismissed for misconduct, after a court found he had complied with a direction to remedy a breach of his employment contact.
Former Victorian Solicitor-General John Cain will give evidence tomorrow and former prime minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday as the Heydon Royal Commission resumes its investigation of the alleged slush fund linked to the AWU in the early 1990s.
The ETU's Victorian branch has defended its $4.5 million slice of employers' insurance and employee entitlement costs at the Heydon Royal Commission today, while its former secretary Dean Mighell has accused the inquiry of "muckraking" by including fees paid to him personally in its evidence.
The Fair Work Commission has given permission for an employer to have legal representation in a workplace bullying case, despite an objection from the employee who launched the action who argued the Commission's bullying jurisdiction is based on self-representation.
The Federal Circuit Court has awarded a long-distance bus driver $13,000 after rejecting his employer's argument that he was employed to work shifts rather than calendar days and therefore not entitled to a living away from home allowance.
The Federal Court has criticised a lower court judge for making gratuitous comments about a barrister, but has rejected her argument that he should have stood down from her client's adverse action case because he was biased.
The Heydon Royal Commission will scrutinise operations of the Protect insurance scheme when it begins hearings into the ETU's Victorian branch tomorrow.
The High Court has reserved its decision on whether BHP Coal fell foul of the Fair Work Act's adverse action provisions by sacking a worker for breaching its workplace conduct policy after he held up an anti-"scab" sign at a picket.
The Abbott Government this morning introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives to cap redundancy payments under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme at a maximum of 16 weeks, describing the current benefits for employees of insolvent companies as "overly generous" and as creating a "moral hazard".
