A multinational company was entitled to dismiss an employee for sending commercial-in-confidence emails to a former co-worker preparing legal action over alleged bullying by its HR manager, the FWC has found.
A senior FWC member has flagged a potential "revolution" in the way the tribunal assesses agreements should a full bench review being sought by IR Minister Kelly O'Dwyer find weight must be given to indirect as well as direct discriminatory terms.
The FWC has allowed a Qantas ground services worker to proceed with his 52-days-late unfair dismissal application, finding his solicitor's focus on an internal appeal while failing to complete the necessary forms before going on holiday amounted to representative error.
IR Minister Kelly O'Dwyer's latest challenge to a contentious, newly-minted Melbourne fire brigade agreement is heading to the FWC for a hearing on Monday, with her bid for a stay order coinciding with the deal's scheduled start date.
The FWC has told an employer that it must accept responsibility for a "suboptimal" workplace culture that it could have reset before sacking two senior wharf workers who verbally abused a female colleague, but it upheld their dismissals for behaviour that "crossed the line".
A Sydney-based Canadian paid a regular monthly untaxed figure in US dollars by a Calgary-headquartered company for which he agreed to act as an independent contractor has had his unfair dismissal claim upheld, with the FWC finding he was not genuinely retrenched.
There is an overwhelming case for change to the Fair Work Act, but neither a Shorten Labor Government nor a returned Coalition administration are likely to undertake fundamental reform, according to Adelaide University Professor of Law, Andrew Stewart.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a bus driver who said he left schoolchildren stranded at a bus stop and told passengers to walk because he was too stressed to keep working.
The Police Federation has failed to convince the FWC that Victoria Police's plans to introduce afternoon shifts breach their agreement, or that the potential for frontline officers to "bear the brunt" of community dissatisfaction made the change unreasonable.
