Qantas says it will appeal today's Federal Court finding it breached adverse action provisions in outsourcing the remainder of its ground handling jobs while grappling with the pandemic, maintaining it was motivated "only by lawful commercial reasons".
A FWC bench has scrapped a contentious deal covering train drivers servicing the Roy Hill Pilbara mine network after finding the employer engaged in "corporate manipulation" by creating a parallel business to bargain with two newly-hired workers for an inferior agreement.
In a novel use of the Corporations Act in an IR setting, logistics company DHL has secured an urgent interlocutory injunction to stop the UWU procuring alleged confidential information from about 60 shop stewards that might have given it a significant advantage in enterprise negotiations underway across the company's sites.
The FWC has thrown out a bid by the AMWU to enter the BHP OS training facility near Mackay to hold discussions with about 150 maintenance trainees, finding the union's coverage rule for fitters and engineering trades doesn't extend to the "caterpillar" trainees until they become maintenance associate "butterflies".
An inquiry into a "terrifying" accident last year in which five mineworkers sustained serious burns has found that labour hire and contract work is "entrenched" in the Queensland coal mining industry and has recommended that employers and labour suppliers bear joint responsibility for safety compliance.
The CFMMEU has told the High Court that applying the multifactorial test to determine if a worker is an employee or independent contractor is a "vacuous" approach without ultimately establishing whether they are conducting their own business.
The FWC has found the redundancy of a FIFO labour hire coal mineworker affected by COVID-19 travel restrictions not genuine, holding that Workpac failed to meet its consult obligations after BHP said it no longer needed him.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a student visa holder who punched a co-worker in the face after accusing him of saying "a lot of bad things" about a colleague she claimed was regularly being sexually assaulted by local Japanese gangsters.
The High Court is likely to hear the Personnel Contracting/ZG Operations and Ridd cases in the second half of the year, after setting timetables for submissions to be completed by early June.
