In a decision said to have "massively" raised the bar on compensation amounts, Queensland's Industrial Court has boosted a "manifestly inadequate" $50,000 payout to nearly $160,000 for a casual laundry worker who faced demands for s-x in return for work.
Virgin Australia pilots have ahead of their union's merger with the TWU voted up a new deal that includes a freeze on compulsory redundancies before December next year.
The FWC has redrawn an employer's "line in the sand" over the use of mobile phones while driving forklifts, ordering it to reinstate and compensate a worker after concluding he was harshly sacked for a first safety policy breach.
A senior FWC member has decided to forge ahead and determine whether a "deactivated" Uber driver is an employee, rejecting a bid to stay his unfair dismissal claim until the Federal Court tackles the question in a case he is pursuing with the Rideshare Driver Network.
A senior FWC member has in awarding costs against a law firm queried its "irreconcilable" explanations for missing filing deadlines in an unfair dismissal case.
The High Court's Rossato judgment is already having a knock-on effect, with a FWC full bench questioning its effect on Deliveroo's appeal of a finding that a rider was an employee and proposing not to determine it until the High Court decides two more cases.
A Coalition-dominated Senate inquiry has backed the FWC's request to delay implementing proposed extensions to its anti-sexual-harassment jurisdiction, but declined to support Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins' call to include her "positive duty" recommendation in the Morrison Government's Respect at Work legislation.
A tribunal has ordered a restaurant manager accused of drugging and raping a bartender to pay aggravated and other damages of $150,000, after leaving the vulnerable international student too traumatised to keep working in the hospitality sector.
Apologies and claims that he conducted himself "out of character" have not spared a union official having his entry permit suspended over a confrontation in which he told a site foreman he did "give a f--k" what happened because he was near the end of his career.
IR academics say the High Court's "revolutionary" approach in Rossato signals an intention to rewrite the rules for determining employment status, with potentially dire consequences for gig workers and others seeking to challenge their characterisation.
