In a case involving one lawyer accusing another of being "either breathtakingly stupid or complicit in the ongoing fraud", a Federal Court judge has today refused to throw out an adverse action case brought by a storeperson sacked for refusing to wear a mask.
A FWC presidential member has issued a 10-point rebuttal of COVID-19-related arguments put by a sacked unvaccinated worker, to help her to consider whether to proceed with positions likely to be "irrelevant" in her unfair dismissal claim and that have been "emphatically rejected in numerous cases" before the tribunal and courts.
The ACTU has called for employers to "step up" ahead of the forecast peak in COVID-19 numbers by providing leave at full pay for workers who need to isolate or quarantine and distributing free rapid antigen tests to all employees.
Just a month after declaring its intention to delete "Schedule X" unpaid pandemic leave provisions, the recent COVID-19 resurgence has spurred the FWC to extend their operation in a handful of health and care awards, coinciding with the Federal Government reviving the pandemic leave disaster payments.
The bid by Qantas to overturn a Federal Court ruling that it took unlawful adverse action against its former ground crew employees argues that some of the Fair Work Act's protected workplace rights are "time bound".
The Federal Court has this afternoon thrown out the latest challenge to COVID-19 public health orders, observing that whatever else the applicant's case lacked, it did not lack ambition.
In a decision reinstating a Regional Express pilot who missed a COVID-19 vaccination deadline, the FWC has expressed sympathy for the airline's "beleaguered HR staff", despite finding the sacking procedurally flawed.
An ACTU call centre worker whose Facebook posts cheered on vaccine mandate protesters who kicked in a union headquarter's windows, applauded attacks against police, mocked domestic violence and disparaged black and transgender people has failed to budge a finding that it rightly sacked him.
The FWC has upheld Australia Post's sacking of a long-time employee who ignored directions not to return to a client's workplace after complaints he was spreading COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
