The failure of a construction company's HR team to adequately explain two proposed "baseline agreements" or provide access to relevant awards has proven fatal to their approval, the FWC finding that other issues of non-compliance could have been dealt with by undertakings.
A court has ordered a former HR/OHS coordinator to pay $35,000 in costs after he unreasonably refused substantial offers to resolve an adverse action case against his employer and four managers and made what was "at worst" an extortionate attempt to increase its settlement offer.
The Federal Circuit Court has fined a former 7-Eleven operator more than $154,000 for using a cash-back scheme to circumvent a biometric payroll system introduced by head office to stamp out underpayments.
The Federal Court will next month convene a hearing for an ACCC prosecution of employment advice provider Employsure for allegedly misleading small business operators into believing it was the FWO or the FWC or was connected to them.
Thousands of retail and hospitality workers sitting on lower-paying "zombie" deals will revert to their respective awards from early March after the FWC terminated a 2007 agreement for Justin Hemmes' Merivale hospitality company and a 2011 Specialty Fashion Group deal.
The FWC earlier this month halted industrial action at BP's Kwinana oil refinery after it accepted that a shutdown of up to a fortnight would be the "unavoidable and inevitable consequence" of protected bans and limitations by AWU members.
An FWC full bench has issued guidance for the approval of enterprise agreements containing minor errors, finding that employers can give as little as four days' notice of voting and alter the text on template forms as long as workers are not disadvantaged.
A full bench has allowed an employee to challenge his dismissal for refusing to use his employer's fingerprint scanning technology that monitored attendance and tracked shifts, finding the case raises "important, novel and emerging issues".
In a case clarifying when employers must make redundancy payments, the Federal Court has rejected claims by Spotless Services Australia Ltd that it was not obliged to pay severance to three Perth International Airport workers due to an exemption for ordinary and customary turnover of labour.
The FWC has rejected a contentious MFB agreement because of terms that hinder workers shifting to part-time employment and permit the United Firefighters Union to block flexible working arrangements, but it has left the door open for the deal's approval with undertakings.
