Despite acknowledging the convention that it is a "brave or foolish" FWC member who refuses to follow a full bench ruling, a commissioner has done just that on the way to granting a union's application for a scope order for an agreement to cover workers at one of a building company's four sites.
The Fair Work Commission has held that a Victorian water authority made a "further claim" that contravened its enterprise agreement when it removed a policy providing for employees' personal use of its cars.
The ACTU will push for the Fair Work Commission's four-year modern award review to create a common clause giving more than two million casual workers the right to become permanent employees.
The NUW has demonstrated majority support for it to bargain for an enterprise agreement to cover warehouse employees at one of Cotton On's two Australian distribution centres – despite the company arguing that a single agreement should cover the workers at both sites.
In two separate decisions, the Fair Work Commission has ruled that it has the power to arbitrate on the use of mobile phones at BHP Coal's Bowen Basin mines and that a tram driver was unfairly sacked after being accused of using his phone while on the road.
The Federal Circuit Court has awarded a long-distance bus driver $13,000 after rejecting his employer's argument that he was employed to work shifts rather than calendar days and therefore not entitled to a living away from home allowance.
The Federal Court has relied on a 25-year "common understanding" in the transport industry in preference to the literal wording of an award in rejecting a TWU claim for Linfox day workers to be paid crib time.
A Fair Work Commission full bench has rejected applications by the FAAA and Qantas Airways for modern enterprise awards for the airline's domestic and long-haul flight attendants.