After more than 30 years leading CPSU Victoria, Karen Batt appears to have been toppled by challenger Jiselle Hanna, in the first contested ballot in two decades.
The FWC has refused to extend time for a worker who attempted to file his unfair dismissal claim two hours before the deadline, finding that by waiting until the last minute, he risked encountering technical difficulties.
The FWC has ordered reinstatement for a professor who sent "intimate and romantic" messages to a student, including a photo of himself in his boxers, finding that his seven-year unblemished record since his recently-uncovered relationship mitigated his behaviour.
The FWO has filed a challenge to a a Federal Court ruling that found a casual academic should not be paid separately for marking, after the NTEU urged it to respond because the decision "could open the door to an explosion of legalised higher education wage theft".
CFMEU construction division administrator Mark Irving has vowed to sack recalcitrant Queensland branch officials after he released a new investigation report that he says confirms the former leadership ran a "violent, cruel, misogynist" regime that "betrayed the core values of unionism".
A worker who threatened his managers that he would set bikies on them and that he had "a bullet with your name on it" resigned in the "heat of the moment" and should have been given the chance to retract it, but the FWC has upheld his dismissal because his menacing behaviour amounted to serious misconduct.
A HR manager opportunistically accused a disgruntled employee of leaking confidential information to "put the blow-torch" to him over his dogged pursuit of underpayments, a court has found.
The FWC has refused to reduce a worker's 16-week redundancy payment after finding that when it comes to determining whether an employer has offered "other acceptable employment", assisting with identifying alternatives "falls short" of procuring a new role.
The FWC has reinstated a worker sacked for "sleeping on the job", finding that the employer lacked evidence and dismissed her before providing an opportunity to respond.
In a judgment that will ripple through a FWC case considering the way homecare, disability and social workers are paid for shifts immediately before or after sleepovers, the Federal Court has rejected FWO arguments that penalty rates should apply.
