An appeal court has upheld a finding that when a drunken barrister said "suck my d-ck" to a female clerk at a late-night function, it fell short of professional misconduct that warranted penalties or counselling.
The aircraft engineers union says no employers should require proof of COVID-19 inoculations that include individual healthcare identifiers, with Virgin agreeing in consent orders to delete the material amid concerns they could be used to access medical histories for other purposes.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has recommended an independent body be established to enforce parliamentary codes of conduct after a third of staffers responding to its workplace review reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment.
The Liberal chair of a Federal Parliamentary inquiry into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workplace and the FWC has billed it as the "nation's only Inquiry into vaccine mandates".
Employers can lawfully direct almost all workers to get COVID-19 vaccinations to gain or retain their jobs, while most who cannot comply due to a disability fall short of carrying out the inherent requirements of employment, a leading IR barrister has told a labour law conference.
Academics say that while the High Court's recent Rossato judgment signals a shift to contract formalism that is likely to leave gig workers outside of labour law protections, significant developments in competition and consumer law might hold promise.
A Supreme Court judge has slapped down a FWC presidential member's "clarion call" for Australians to "vigorously" reject the notion of mandatory COVID-19 jabs, questioning her assertions about the efficacy of vaccines and declaring it is not her role to challenge the validity or appropriateness of public health orders.
The NSW Supreme Court has backed the State government's use of Public Health Orders to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for certain categories of workers, dismissing arguments that the directions compromised objectors' "right" to choose what they put in their bodies.
Employers are generally on "solid ground" in suspending or dismissing workers who refuse reasonable directions to be vaccinated to perform their jobs, but face a range of practical difficulties if they take such action, according to Adelaide University Professor of Law, Andrew Stewart.
In a development sure to be watched closely by employers, WorkSafe Victoria is inquiring into the COVID-19 death of a 46-year-old call centre employee identified as a close contact at his workplace's Tier 1 exposure site.
