A FWC member has applied the "well known 'duck principle'" in holding that a tyre recycling company suspected of phoenixing unfairly sacked a worker who complained about unpaid superannuation, before threatening to kill a director.
In a thinly-veiled shot at a tribunal colleague who used her position to criticise vaccine mandates, a senior FWC member has emphasised that it is not for the Commission to undermine the law by entertaining parties' "alternative policy preferences".
Building on previous decisions taking a worker's mental health into account when allowing late unfair dismissal applications to proceed, the FWC has granted a time extension to a seed picker ensnared in her partner's breakdown.
The FWC has for the second time this month stressed that unions cannot leave any room for ambiguity when notifying employers of protected industrial action, pulling the pin on a strike by helicopter maintenance engineers working in the north-west.
CFMMEU mining and energy division Queensland district president Stephen Smyth has denied allegations that he misused his union credit card, maintaining that he repaid some items while others were legitimate work-related expenses.
A university professor who won reinstatement after being sacked for being "s-xually intimate" with a student during a naked swim has failed to have his and his employer's names removed from the FWC's published decision, despite his concerns the case will attract extra publicity because he is a namesake of the Australian Prime Minister.
In a potential signal ahead of this year's annual wage review, New Zealand will next month raise its minimum wage by 6% on the back of higher-than-expected inflation.
In a decision underlining the responsibility of workers to keep their contact details up to date, a senior FWC member has refused an unvaccinated worker's bid for a one-day extension to challenge his sacking by email on the basis he did not get the message.
Former FWC Vice President Michael Lawler is suing the ABC and one of its reporters for allegedly deceiving him into participating in a Four Corners program that a Government inquiry later found displayed his "unfitness" for office.
Tasmania's Supreme Court has reprimanded State Industrial Commission president David Barclay - who has a secondary appointment to the FWC - for professional misconduct on a medical negligence case that he did "little to progress" in the 24 years he had carriage of it until he joined the tribunal.
