A veteran musician accusing Opera Australia of using the pandemic as an excuse to weed out union activists was selected for redundancy after a panel of "experienced employees" ranked him below its orchestra's two other oboe players, according to the company's Federal Circuit Court response.
In a significant, if split, decision on the FWC's jurisdictional ambit, a majority full Federal Court has ruled that the tribunal would not be invalidly exercising judicial power if it arbitrated a dispute under an agreement an employer inherited after winning a Defence Department tender.
In what the CFMMEU is hailing as another win in a similar vein to the landmark Skene and Rossato rulings, the Federal Court has overruled the Attorney-General's Department's "parsimonious" refusal to include a 25% casual loading in a mineworker's FEG payout.
A Melbourne hotel that claimed an inability to engage in face-to-face discussions before making a chef redundant during the city's second COVID-19 lockdown must compensate her for unfair dismissal, after falling foul of award consultation obligations.
An HR manager is suing a biotechnology company for humiliating high-rotation desk moves and allegedly hiring a superior for her to report to as a "contrivance" to make her role redundant after she raised pandemic-related OHS and JobKeeper issues.
An FWC full bench has found that a presidential member "Illogically" followed his ruling that a worker might not have been dismissed if fairly treated by calculating he would have worked just three more weeks if afforded due process.
The FWC has found employers are not obliged to keep workers on the payroll because of JobKeeper's availability, but has awarded a manager compensation for unfair dismissal that included 24 weeks of the job subsidy, because retaining him would have been "entirely consistent" with the scheme's objectives.
A recruitment company that sought to slash a marketing coordinator's hours by 75% before making her redundant has failed to convince the FWC that it should reduce her payout to zero.
In holding that Qantas need not include prior service with related entities or casual employment when calculating flight attendants' redundancy entitlements, a senior FWC member has accused the FAAA of "cherry picking" to try to prove otherwise.
An FWC bench led by President Iain Ross "made no attempt" to analyse how model and agreement redundancy terms would operate in conjunction when assessing whether 21 seafarers had been fairly dismissed, a full Federal Court has found.