A court has rejected claims by the former general manager of Swatch Group Australia that he was directed to engage in price-fixing, in breach of both the Trade Practices Act and the implied terms of his employment contract, while the company failed in its counter claim that pornographic material found on his computer after his sacking justified his summary dismissal.
A pragmatic approach to bargaining, a focus on training and open lines of communication have enabled a heavy equipment manufacturer and the AMWU to lock-in a dozen new agreements this year with industrial harmony intact and discussions underway on a framework to guide future negotiations.
The Federal Magistrates Court has dismissed a disability discrimination complaint by a former local government employee who was sacked on his second day at work when it was discovered he had an outstanding workers' compensation claim, but it has lambasted the council's employee relations practices, saying they were "squarely at odds with any notion of fairness".
Police investigation continues into pornographic and violent emails; Employer undertakings change the agreement, says FWA; VECCI to file in October on shorter shift bid; and Breakthrough in SA University bargaining.
Employers are obliged to issue notices of representation rights to all workers covered by the scope of unions' proposed deals, a FWA full bench has found, rejecting a security company's argument that the LHMU couldn't apply for a protected action ballot order as the bargaining representative for employees who hadn't been issued such notices.
Fair Work Australia has engaged its little-used "public interest" power to conditionally approve two agreements containing voluntary hours clauses, despite finding they would not make employees better off.
Employer and union hit with bargaining orders; Majority support determination at Monadelphous; Nurses suspend industrial action; and Mixed results for AMWU on default super
In the first contested application to terminate an agreement under the Fair Work Act, FWA has given detailed consideration to its discretionary power to end enterprise deals, including the new Act's "appropriateness" test.
A VECCI bid to vary 81 modern awards to allow casual and part-time employees to work shorter shifts is "hopeless", an abuse of process and should be struck out, the ACTU has argued in a preliminary FWA hearing today.
