Contested-facts dismissal case should have gone to hearing: Bench; Member's "significant error" in considering legal representation; FWC rejects employer's costs bid in Coty "ugly emails" case.
The FWC has criticised a company for fundamental failures of due process in a dismissal overseen by its HR function and warned that treating workers as human resources runs the risk of ignoring that they are "easily damaged" human beings "and when faulty they should be handled with more care than machines".
Leading employment law practitioners have predicted it is only a matter of time before Australia sees a test case similar to UK's recent landmark Uber decision which found drivers were employees, not contractors.
In a decision that canvasses how much assistance the FWC should provide to unrepresented parties, a full Federal Court has found an employer was not denied procedural fairness when the FWC dismissed an appeal notice that was more "diatribe" than pleading and didn't tell the employer to fix it.
An employee who suffered a venomous spider bite that required her to be hospitalised has failed to secure extended sick leave after the FWC ruled her medical condition wasn't "prolonged" or "serious" enough.
Major rail freight operator Aurizon plans to cut about 800 jobs over three years as it seeks to deliver up to $300 million in gains under new enterprise agreements, which exclude what the company says are "legacy conditions".
A FWC full bench today agreed to include accident make-up pay in a number of modern awards as part of its four-yearly review and will provide employers with a seven-day window to make submissions on union proposals for an entitlement of up to 104 weeks of make-up pay.
Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James told a parliamentary committee today that her organisation is offering its workforce a pay rise of 1.25% over the next 12 months and 1% for each of the next two years, plus a 0.25% "unscheduled absence bonus" in the first year if sick leave can be reduced.
A Federal Court full bench has overturned a lower court's interpretation of an employment contract, finding that it had wrongly taken account of the parties' conduct after it commenced.
