A senior FWC member has refused to recuse himself for addressing a worker's representative as "mister" in an unfair dismissal case that argued an employer should have permitted an unvaccinated employee to keep working from home during COVID-19 restrictions instead of sacking her.
The FWC has tossed out an unfair dismissal claim from a government lawyer responsible for overseeing safe workplaces, finding he fully understood the seriousness of "wilfully and persistently" refusing to confirm his COVID-19 vaccination status.
The FWC has held that resource giant South32 unfairly treated some workers it directed to isolate and get tested after identifying them as COVID-19 contacts, ordering it to recredit annual leave, deduct sick leave and pay them for other times as though they were at work.
A senior FWC member has lambasted an "incompetent" and "belligerent" representative involved in numerous challenges to vaccination-related dismissals, bemoaning that a regulatory gap prevented him from awarding costs against the offending individual.
A Federal Court judge has moved swiftly to shut down a legal representative for 18 airline workers seeking damages for COVID-19 vaccination-related sackings after he sent "obscene [and] threatening" emails to the defendants' lawyers and in-house IR teams.
A large employer had no need to pay for external lawyers when it could have relied on its HR team to argue against a former employee's "straightforward" vaccination case, the FWC has found.
The High Court will next month consider whether to grant special leave to hear the first appeal to reach its doors over government COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
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.