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The FWC has found an IR consultant's failure to check his emails after business hours on a Friday or the following Monday wholly to blame for a day-late unfair dismissal claim, extending time for his client to argue it unfairly retrenched her after she converted to casual employment.

Qube Ports must reinstate a stevedore who pranged a client's $70,000 Mercedes after an operations manager mistook her explanations as an attempt to excuse her behaviour or shift the blame.

An increase in female managers helped shrink the average gender pay gap to 21.7% this year, down from 22.8%, according to the WGEA's latest gender equality scorecard.

An intellectual property firm fumbled an employee's summary dismissal when it switched from highlighting his deficient performance and conduct to "dishonesty" over time spent browsing the internet "for items of personal interest", the FWC has found.

The Australian Public Service Commission is seeking feedback within four weeks on a draft "culturally and linguistically diverse" employment strategy for the APS that identifies almost 60 proposed actions for HR workers, diversity and inclusion teams, managers and senior leadership.

University research commissioned by the FWC has identified 29 "large, highly feminised" and probably undervalued occupations covered by 13 modern awards that it might spotlight in the current annual wage review, in response to the Secure Jobs' imperative to address unequal remuneration and gender undervaluation in minimum rates of pay.

In a full bench decision exploring what constitutes work-related conduct, essential services provider Ventia has failed to knock out the reinstatement of a firefighter who shared an Only Fans video and a meme showing three naked women in a "sickos" Facebook group of current and former colleagues.

A victim of "appalling" domestic violence did not need to provide independent medical advice to explain why she filed an unfair dismissal application almost four months late, the FWC has found.

Employment rights legal centre JobWatch says a client survey suggests most employers are failing to take internal complaints of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination seriously or to adequately protect employees, prompting recommendations to expand positive duty and vicarious liability provisions, and actively monitor compliance.

Queensland Council of Unions secretary Jacqueline King says Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke is "receptive" to calls for new gender equity laws replicating the State's legislation that has "made more of a difference" in its first year than in the previous two decades under the Queensland IRC's equal remuneration principle.