The ACTU's triennial Congress has endorsed a proposal for state and federal governments to enact industrial manslaughter laws, after maritime union leader Chris Cain told delegates that employers who recklessly kill workers should face $20 million fines and 20 years behind bars.
In a significant decision on out-of-hours conduct, the FWC has ruled that ALDI justifiably dismissed a storeperson for throwing a full beer glass over the heads of colleagues at an official company Christmas party.
Unions will next week consider pushing for stronger remedies for unfair dismissal by adopting measures such as removing the $73,000 compensation limit, enabling employees to pursue more than their lost income and empowering them to seek penalties against employers.
The FWC has praised Australia Post subsidiary Startrack Express for its flawless process in dismissing an employee who "crossed a line" from tolerable crudity to unacceptable racism in his remarks to colleagues.
Dismissing an employee for providing false and misleading information during the recruitment process was not unfair, despite procedural failings by his employer, a tribunal has ruled.
The FWC has rejected a dismissed employee's contention that a company's duty of care extended to anticipating that he would act in a violent and threatening manner towards a co-worker.
A major private hospital justifiably dismissed a 47-year-old employee for sending an Instagram post "of a s-xual nature" to a young graduate nurse he barely knew, the FWC has found.
The pitfalls of self-representation have been highlighted by an FWC full bench that found it would be "futile" to hear a former chief executive's anti-bullying case because his notice of appeal "expressly" indicated he was seeking an unnecessary order.
The FWC has extended time for a BHP joint venture mineworker to lodge a general protections claim challenging his sacking over a failed drug test, but has agreed there is "great weight" to the employer's view that it is essentially an unfair dismissal application in disguise.