Workplace policy page 5 of 80

The Australian Public Service Commission is seeking feedback within four weeks on a draft "culturally and linguistically diverse" employment strategy for the APS that identifies almost 60 proposed actions for HR workers, diversity and inclusion teams, managers and senior leadership.

An employer is facing a potential adverse action claim after the FWC held that its general manager's out-of-hours spamming of an injured delivery driver ended the employment relationship even if the company's director did not want him dismissed.

In the first FWC full bench consideration of Secure Jobs Act flexible work dispute provisions, a worker's application has fallen at the first hurdle because she failed to provide her employer with written reasons and offered "unsatisfactory" evidence about her alleged disability.

Legislation introduced to Federal Parliament today to protect workers who bring sexual harassment claims from costs orders in most circumstances marks the "final legislative reform" in implementing the recommendations of the landmark Respect@Work report, according to the Albanese Government.

In what a leading labour law academic describes as a "victory for common sense", a full court has quashed a ruling that union officials cannot use their right to enter premises for discussions with members to gather signatures on petitions or "secure a commitment to a particular course of action in the future".

In a full bench decision exploring what constitutes work-related conduct, essential services provider Ventia has failed to knock out the reinstatement of a firefighter who shared an Only Fans video and a meme showing three naked women in a "sickos" Facebook group of current and former colleagues.

Employment rights legal centre JobWatch says a client survey suggests most employers are failing to take internal complaints of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination seriously or to adequately protect employees, prompting recommendations to expand positive duty and vicarious liability provisions, and actively monitor compliance.

Queensland Council of Unions secretary Jacqueline King says Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke is "receptive" to calls for new gender equity laws replicating the State's legislation that has "made more of a difference" in its first year than in the previous two decades under the Queensland IRC's equal remuneration principle.

A jeweller who showered a manager with gifts and compliments, along with unrequited declarations of his affections and a slap on the bottom, is facing a record damages payout for sexually harassing her and victimising her for complaining about it, while his law firm is under fire for the "intimidatory and vindictive" tone of its correspondence.

A tribunal has awarded $236,000 in damages, plus potential further lost earnings and interest, to a long-serving language teacher who developed a psychological injury when his employer "excluded" him from the workplace for two years after he suffered a debilitating spinal stroke.