Maurice Blackburn's head of employment and industrial law, Josh Bornstein, says damages for discrimination and harassment "remain persistently low" but he expects an upwards trajectory as their impact has been "laid bare" and expectations are now clearer.
A court has thrown out claims by a HR consultancy's former chief executive that she experienced relentless bullying, unilateral pay deductions and an excessive workload before her unlawful sacking in 2020 for allegedly misusing a corporate credit card.
A full Federal Court has overturned orders for a big company to compensate a former employee for a "sham" redundancy, finding a judge wrongly ruled on the necessity of a business restructure.
An employer has fended off a new employee's adverse action claim after providing evidence of the numerous steps it took to address se-xual harassment and bullying allegations before her abrupt resignation.
An "openly gay" head chef sacked for allegedly molesting female co-workers has won $16,000 compensation, after the FWC found it "more than coincidental" that his employer decided that s-xual harassment provided a valid reason for summary dismissal before it emailed employees a survey full of loaded questions.
In what is believed to be the first workplace breastfeeding discrimination ruling, a tribunal has found that a KFC franchisee indirectly discriminated against a worker when it told her to express milk in a tent, within a storeroom with no door.
The FWC will consider the late unfair dismissal claim of a worker who believes his employer sacked him for alleged sexual harassment, after receiving evidence that five law firms rejected his case on one day alone.
The president of a nursing "red union" faces the sack from her hospital job after failing to persuade an appeal court that unauthorised media comments fell under protected industrial activity.
The FWC has ordered the reinstatement of a dump truck driver dismissed after a "deeply flawed" investigation into allegations he exposed a female trainee to explicit images while passing around his phone.
A judge has thrown out a Bing Lee worker's race and sex discrimination case, saying it demonstrates "the perils of litigating hurt feelings", after she embellished events "which stem predominantly from unremarkable, collegiate 'small talk', and petty workplace disagreements to cast them in a more nefarious light".
