Victoria's Supreme Court is this morning livestreaming a hearing into a major challenge to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations, with more than 100 health, construction and education workers and others arguing it breaches the State's Human Rights Charter.
Two of Australia's largest employers, retailers Woolworths and Coles, have today announced mandatory vaccination policies that will be rolled out in coming months.
The CFMMEU's mining and energy division has asked the FWC to halt the rollout of BHP's mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Mt Arthur open cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley, claiming it is not a lawful and reasonable direction.
A Supreme Court judge has slapped down a FWC presidential member's "clarion call" for Australians to "vigorously" reject the notion of mandatory COVID-19 jabs, questioning her assertions about the efficacy of vaccines and declaring it is not her role to challenge the validity or appropriateness of public health orders.
SafeWork NSW has charged Qantas over alleged discriminatory conduct against an OHS representative it stood down after he apparently advised colleagues not to clean planes arriving from China early last year due to COVID-19 concerns.
The NSW Supreme Court has backed the State government's use of Public Health Orders to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for certain categories of workers, dismissing arguments that the directions compromised objectors' "right" to choose what they put in their bodies.
Employers are generally on "solid ground" in suspending or dismissing workers who refuse reasonable directions to be vaccinated to perform their jobs, but face a range of practical difficulties if they take such action, according to Adelaide University Professor of Law, Andrew Stewart.
A recruitment company's former operations manager, who is claiming $20,000 for the hurt and humiliation flowing from her alleged discriminatory sacking due to her pregnancy, has won more time to pursue her claim, while her employer has failed in its bid for costs against her "neophyte" lawyer, after a court accepted that there had been "a comedy of errors" that fell well short of representative error.
The FWC has today launched a consultation process for its new anti-s-xual-harassment jurisdiction, which starts operating from November 11, while it has also published a benchbook on the regime.
