In a thinly-veiled shot at a tribunal colleague who used her position to criticise vaccine mandates, a senior FWC member has emphasised that it is not for the Commission to undermine the law by entertaining parties' "alternative policy preferences".
In an important ruling on the NSW IRC's jurisdictional powers, the High Court has found that a since-repealed provision did not prevent the State tribunal considering a police officer's unfair dismissal case that challenged his forced retirement on medical grounds.
The FWC has thrown out an unfair dismissal case brought by a law student sacked from a full-time job as a legal assistant for failing to get a COVID-19 jab, finding she did not complete the required minimum employment term after taking time off to sit exams.
The AAT has accused the Attorney-General's Department of "studied ambiguity" in finding it mistakenly denied a worker up to $23,600 under the FEG scheme because his insolvent employer neglected to contribute to an industry entitlements fund.
A full Federal Court has dismissed an on-hire worker's bid to overturn a FWC ruling that it could not force a labour hire company to reinstate him to his former job at client CUB, upholding the tribunal's finding giving primacy to the host employer's right to determine who it allowed on its site.
The FWC has awarded compensation to a sacked childcare worker after noting the "disturbing" failure of a company's HR department to inform the chief executive of protections for employees forced to take time off due to illness or injury.
An employer will get another chance to argue that it did not dismiss a worker after a four-member FWC bench determined that the company's jurisdictional objection should not have been decided on the papers.
A senior tribunal member has expressed exasperation over legislators' continued failure to address shortcomings in the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme after being forced to hand down an "unfair and unjust" decision denying two workers almost $70,000 in redundancy entitlements due to a liquidator's actions.
A 64-year-old BlueScope worker sacked for mishandling a 13-tonne coil has failed to win his job back, after a full Federal Court majority found a FWC bench did not go beyond its powers to halt his reinstatement.