In a case of curious timing, the FWC has endorsed a council's mid-pandemic scrapping of an enduring work-from-home arrangement on the basis it fell outside the purview of a flexible work agreement clause.
The FWC has let a construction company bin a 5% pay rise that came into effect in February plus next year's increase, despite CFMMEU evidence that some workers felt pressured to support the COVID-19 variation in a ballot that identified their vote.
A pandemic-affected employer has succeeded in having redundancy payments to four workers slashed by almost 70%, the FWC finding its perilous cash position and obligation to remaining employees outweighed the impact on the quartet.
Court finding on notice period change shredded; Call to halt wage theft law until working party concludes; Industry super paper concedes employees might bear costs of super rises; and $15K for academic in "labyrinthine" case.
In a significant decision examining how employers can lawfully assess "useful work" when standing down employees, the FWC has ruled a pandemic-affected cruise operator acted "upon proper principles" when transferring some of a superintendent's duties to others.
The FWC has found it unreasonable of Qantas to only pay the equivalent of two fortnightly JobKeeper payments to a monthly paid manager who worked for part of the period, in a decision the ASU wants applied to the rest of its workforce.
Qantas has failed in its challenge to FWC powers to review how it applied the JobKeeper scheme to a worker claiming he was short-changed, a full bench finding among other reasons that the airline's characterisation of the dispute was "somewhat artificial".
In a matter a judge has speculated could have "wide ramifications" regarding stand-downs, Qantas and Jetstar have won an injunction stopping the FWC from arbitrating a dispute concerning hundreds of engineers rendered idle by the pandemic.
More than 200,000 award-covered fast food industry workers face temporary cuts to part-time hours and reduced overtime penalties under fiercely-contested, pandemic-related changes approved by an FWC full bench.
Unions are calling on Qantas to permit sick workers to continue accessing paid personal leave entitlements while stood down due to the coronavirus, despite the Federal Court ruling today that it is not obliged to do so.
