The FWC has refused the RTBU's bid for a scope order so that it can negotiate separate agreements for Australian Rail Track Corporation's operational employees and their office-based colleagues, finding that even if it could ignore "sloppy" position descriptions in the application, a carve-out would not improve bargaining.
An FWC member must rehear the unfair dismissal claim of a glazier sacked for frequent absences following surgery, a full bench finding he failed to consider whether the employer notified the worker of reasons later found to be valid or gave him a chance to respond.
Bargained wage rises in the private sector dropped to 2.7% a year in the September quarter, according to newly-released Attorney-General's Department data that also shows some large retail employers are starting to tie increases to the FWC's annual review.
The FWC has held that a service station operator "set about" dismissing a worker after she filed a compensation claim, unfairly sacking her over her pink hair, s-xual objectification of a male customer and derogatory comments, despite having some valid reasons.
The FWC has taken a disability care provider to task over the process followed in dismissing one of its workers, finding she was "summonsed" by its HR manager "to participate in an ambush of her employment".
The FWC has awarded more than $2000 compensation to a roadside supervisor dismissed after he inserted a metal bar down the rear of a co-worker's pants and directed crew members to collect refundable cans and bottles so he could give the money to his daughter.
The FWC has found an employer's failure to consult a pregnant worker before abruptly announcing her redundancy to be the "very definition of unfair", rejecting its submissions that a series of meetings were adequate.
An employer that unilaterally reduced the classification levels of two workers previously handed a pay upgrade has failed to convince the FWC it had no power to intervene in a contractual issue "masquerading" as an enterprise agreement dispute.
A tribunal member "counter-intuitively" refused to award compensation to an unfairly dismissed employee after failing to assess financial loss and wrongly asserting that she had admitted to competing priorities, an FWC full bench has found.
The importance of 'choice versus direction' in determining whether employees are working or not has been highlighted in an FWC decision considering the case of boat masters and crew having their unpaid meal breaks interrupted to assist passengers on multi-day dive trips.
