The FWC is considering COVID-19 variations to Queensland University of Technology agreements that include a requirement to factor in the pandemic's effect on employees' working environment and personal lives when managing performance.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a catering assistant who coughed in the face of a nurse taking his temperature on-site immediately before he began his shift at an aged care home.
In a significant decision on FWO investigative powers under recent laws stiffening protections for vulnerable workers, the Federal Court has rejected a franchisor's bid to have declared void a notice to produce documents created before the legislation came into force.
BlueScope Steel has for the second time in a year succeeded in challenging the reinstatement of a worker dismissed for a critical safety breach, an FWC full bench resoundingly rejecting a tribunal member's characterisation of the incident as "minor".
A church has failed to persuade the FWC that a pastor was not an employee when he was given an ultimatum to "repent" or be "released" from his role, the tribunal finding that his regular salary and leave payments for full-time hours indicated the existence of a legal relationship.
An "incompetent" HR manager's bungled sacking of a retail worker has contributed to an FWC finding that it was unfair, despite the employee's secret recordings of disciplinary meetings providing a valid reason.
The NTEU says it is preparing a "wave of class actions" and will "open the rule book" in pursuing other avenues to recover millions of dollars in underpayments on behalf of highly casualised university employees.
BHP will next week make a renewed attempt to win approval for two in-house labour enterprise agreements, after an FWC full bench majority ruled last month that its failure to properly explain the proposed pay arrangements meant the workforce did not genuinely agree.
An FWC full bench has baulked at extending paid pandemic leave to award-covered disability services and ambulance workers, saying there was insufficient evidence of a "threat to the resilience" of care in those sectors.
A dismissed worker and a union that was not a party to a major security company's pre-Fair Work agreement have succeeded in getting it terminated despite opposition from the employer and a number of current employees.
