The FWC has cleared the way for Bluescope to outsource the cleaning role of skilled operators at its Port Kembla bulk berth department, finding it would be unfair to stop it achieving financial benefits of improved flexibility even though it will cost eight permanent positions.
An academic challenging his sacking for breaching his university's code of conduct when he denounced its climate change research will tell the High Court intellectual freedom provisions give him an overriding right to criticise his employer.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a 52-year-old Victorian secondary teacher who "crossed the line" when he hugged and touched boys, despite also finding his employer did not follow the disciplinary procedures set out in its enterprise agreement.
The Department of Home Affairs has failed to convince the FWC it was not obliged to consult workers before introducing new policies governing social media use, interactions with children and a dress code deeming sleeveless clothing "unsuitable".
The FWC has shot down an aged care home's "one employer policy" introduced in the chaotic early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, ordering it to re-engage a part-time musical therapist jettisoned after she continued to work at three other facilities.
A judge has taken an unsparing swipe at "economically rationalist management policy" in considering an eminent CSIRO scientist's challenge to his redundancy, bemoaning a selection process based on candidates' capacity for "external revenue generation".
A judge has in imposing penalties on BMA factored in that management overseeing one of its a coal-loading facilities "took the odds" after being warned they were breaching its agreement by requiring workers to perform 455 overtime hours a year.
A senior FWC member got his wires crossed when he insisted a union had asked him to rule on the same electrician's allowance dispute he had considered almost three years earlier, a full bench has found.
A BHP worker accused of failing to cooperate with COVID-19 temperature screening should have been told before a meeting that it wanted to question him separately over a colleague's alleged misconduct, but the FWC says the employer did not need to reveal the investigation involved his support person.
The FWC has expressed sympathy for four police officers facing transfers after they belatedly learned their time in a specialist s-x offenders unit would be capped, but has ruled it lacks power to arbitrate the matter.