As the Minns Labor Government prepares to introduce further IR amendments in NSW, the lawyer involved in one of the first adverse action cases brought under the Fair Work Act has told a conference the one thing he would not recommend is adopting the federal legislation's general protections provisions.
Sydney University will not have to reinstate a lecturer sacked five years ago for superimposing a swastika on an image of an Israeli flag, after a full Federal Court majority found he could not prove that his "incendiary" conduct fell under intellectual freedom protections.
The FWC has extended time for a worker with "significant" mental health issues beyond the "ordinary stress" associated with most sackings, despite finding that representative error might also have contributed to the delay in filing her unfair dismissal case.
The SDA has failed to win bargaining orders against a beauty retailer that froze it out of negotiations for a new deal, after a FWC member had just an hour to weigh the application before voting ended and it won resounding support.
ASU officials will no longer have to be escorted to the bathroom when exercising entry rights at the ATO after the FWC found it an unreasonable request, while giving union delegates "time release" to accompany them would be "frankly quite ridiculous".
The FWC has halved the redundancy payouts for two finance workers who stood in the way of their employer's attempt to find jobs with a competitor by declining its request for updated resumes.
The FWC has waved through a worker's late unfair dismissal application after accepting that it took seeing a job advertisement closely mirroring her role to crystallise doubts about whether she had genuinely been made redundant.
In a decision assessing how long a valid reason remains "current", the FWC has overlooked serious procedural deficiencies to back a landscaping business's summary sacking of a gardener almost two months after he called a colleague a "fat exploiter of foreigners".
Mining giant Peabody has asked the High Court to weigh in on the "critical question" of when redundancies can be considered genuine and the extent of FWC powers to determine how employers might avoid job losses.
A FWC senior member has thrown out the unfair dismissal case of a Sri Lankan worker paid $300 a month as she did not meet the minimum employment period, but will refer it to the general manager for advice or to notify the authorities.
