A senior public servant has lost his challenge to a Fair Work Commission finding that his department was performance-managing rather than bullying him.
The head of the Fair Work Commission's anti-bullying panel has highlighted the key cases in the new jurisdiction's first year, and revealed that many employers are failing to follow their own internal procedures when dealing with bullying complaints.
A major employer-clientele law firm is predicting that unions will become more aggressive in their pursuit of wage and job security claims this year, and that employers will respond in kind by seeking to unilaterally end bargaining negotiations and turning to regulators like the ACCC.
A bank's management of an under-performing lawyer fell short of "the best human resources practice" and was not "entirely beyond criticism", but did not constitute bullying under the Fair Work Act, a senior member of the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
The Fair Work Commission has held that while sacked workers' anti-bullying claims are likely to fail, it could be appropriate to hold them "in abeyance" if the workers were "actively" contesting their dismissal.
The Fair Work Commission has ruled that a childcare worker who received "heavy handed" treatment from her boss and intolerance and low-level anger from a colleague was not bullied under the Fair Work Act, but has recommended that the employer improve its performance management process.
Stevedoring giant DP World was entitled to summarily dismiss an MUA delegate who called a colleague a "f--king lagger" and instructed another worker to lie in a related investigation, and the sacking did not amount to adverse action, the Federal Court has ruled today.
The FWC has again refused to suppress the names of an employer and workers facing allegations of bullying, finding that the principle of open justice meant it shouldn't make confidentiality orders.
A high-level FWC full bench will decide what constitutes being "at work" under the Fair Work Act's bullying regime after hearing argument this morning from three DP World workers, the company, the MUA, ACCI and the AiG.
