The FWC has quashed an unreasonable JobKeeper-enabling stand-down direction that left the employer open to an employee's "accusation" that it sought to punish him for pressing to work from home in locked-down Melbourne.
The Morrison Government's closely-guarded IR working group process - which has included addresses by FWC President Iain Ross and fast food giant McDonald's - is nearing the point where it will become clear whether consensus can be reached between employers and unions on changes to workplace laws.
The FWC is considering COVID-19 variations to Queensland University of Technology agreements that include a requirement to factor in the pandemic's effect on employees' working environment and personal lives when managing performance.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a catering assistant who coughed in the face of a nurse taking his temperature on-site immediately before he began his shift at an aged care home.
In a significant decision on FWO investigative powers under recent laws stiffening protections for vulnerable workers, the Federal Court has rejected a franchisor's bid to have declared void a notice to produce documents created before the legislation came into force.
BlueScope Steel has for the second time in a year succeeded in challenging the reinstatement of a worker dismissed for a critical safety breach, an FWC full bench resoundingly rejecting a tribunal member's characterisation of the incident as "minor".
A church has failed to persuade the FWC that a pastor was not an employee when he was given an ultimatum to "repent" or be "released" from his role, the tribunal finding that his regular salary and leave payments for full-time hours indicated the existence of a legal relationship.
An "incompetent" HR manager's bungled sacking of a retail worker has contributed to an FWC finding that it was unfair, despite the employee's secret recordings of disciplinary meetings providing a valid reason.
The NTEU says it is preparing a "wave of class actions" and will "open the rule book" in pursuing other avenues to recover millions of dollars in underpayments on behalf of highly casualised university employees.
BHP will next week make a renewed attempt to win approval for two in-house labour enterprise agreements, after an FWC full bench majority ruled last month that its failure to properly explain the proposed pay arrangements meant the workforce did not genuinely agree.
