Legal page 352 of 569

Labor will today unveil an election pledge to ensure that labour hire workers receive the same pay and conditions as direct employees

The FWC has given short shrift to union applications for a protected action ballot at Kimberly-Clark Australia, finding a cancelled meeting and a week's delay in securing a new date cannot be construed as being obstructive.

In a case in which classroom allergy management has intersected with IR laws, the FWC has reinstated an infants teacher summarily dismissed for allegedly breaching her duty of care when she gave an "unsafe" chocolate to a pupil, after checking its ingredients.

The FWO has launched a challenge to last month's Federal Court order for the MUA to pay a $38,000 fine for a single contravention of the prohibition on unlawful strikes, when the watchdog was seeking $3.6 million for what it says was more than 500 breaches during industrial action against stevedore Hutchison Ports.

The ripples from a recent decision upsetting the authority on outer limits contract workers pursuing unfair dismissal claims have reached another jurisdiction, with the WA IR Commission ordering the reinstatement of a septuagenarian school traffic warden who had been "taken advantage" of by the employer.

In a significant decision on out-of-hours conduct, the FWC has ruled that ALDI justifiably dismissed a storeperson for throwing a full beer glass over the heads of colleagues at an official company Christmas party.

The FWC has given Workplace Minister Craig Laundy the go-ahead to put his case that the MFB agreement should be rejected because it contains discriminatory and objectionable terms and fails the BOOT.

The FWC has praised Australia Post subsidiary Startrack Express for its flawless process in dismissing an employee who "crossed a line" from tolerable crudity to unacceptable racism in his remarks to colleagues.

An order requiring the NTEU to give a university more than the statutory three days' notice of protected industrial action has been quashed by an FWC full bench that found a tribunal member wrongly presupposed that any such action would be suspended by the Commission if it interfered with student exams or graduation.

A court has imposed a $71,000 costs order on an HR manager who took a "scattergun" approach to challenging her dismissal, but has stopped short of imposing a similar order on her high-profile Sydney barrister, despite criticising his role in the case.