The FWC has emphasised that young women should not have to tell older superiors that they don't want sexually loaded communications, upholding the sacking of a senior council worker who insisted younger co-workers welcomed his numerous salacious texts.
In a significant ruling that might reduce penalties regulators can win for Fair Work Act breaches, the Federal Court has found that the legislation's double jeopardy provision prevents the imposition of separate fines for related contraventions arising from the same conduct.
In refusing an extension of time application, the FWC has found incorrect advice that a "no-win/no-fee" law firm allegedly gave a worker about the cut-off date for lodging her unfair dismissal application would not constitute representational error as it declined her business.
The FWC has granted an entry permit to a former CFMEU official once fined $30,000 for blockading a worksite and abusing workers in a bid to coerce Grocon into making an agreement, hearing he became a "different person" once employed as an AWU organiser.
An employer has been set the challenge of reverse engineering an agreement rejected on the basis it was not genuinely agreed, after the FWC observed that while achievable through undertakings it was nonetheless a "difficult task".
An FWC full bench has quashed a decision not to approve a deal struck between Thiess and three pre-contract employees on the basis it was not genuinely agreed, remitting the Mount Pleasant mine agreement to a single member for redetermination.
The Fair Work Commission has ordered an immediate 4% pay rise for about 13,000 employees of the former Department of Immigration and Border Protection, after noting they have not received any increases for almost five years.
The FWC has extended time for a BHP joint venture mineworker to lodge a general protections claim challenging his sacking over a failed drug test, but has agreed there is "great weight" to the employer's view that it is essentially an unfair dismissal application in disguise.
In a rare case of an FWC member standing themselves down, a commissioner has found that comments she made about the "vexatious" applicants in a discontinued anti-bullying case could lead observers to question her impartiality when considering a counter anti-bullying application by the original respondent.
In a broad warning to employees mixing social media and work, the FWC has found that a BHP Billiton mineworker was justifiably sacked despite upon realising his error quickly deleting two Facebook posts mistakenly asserting shifts were cancelled.
