In a decision sure to catch the eye of service providers using rostering apps to keep workers at arm's length, the FWC has found that a home care worker who signed two documents describing her as an independent contractor is in fact an employee capable of suing her employer for unlawful dismissal.
The law firm whose advocacy helped spur the FWC to consider regulating paid agents has called for improved "referral pathways" that steer workers contesting their dismissals towards pro bono clearing houses, Legal Aid and the community legal sector.
An employer supplying well workers for offshore gas operations in the Bass Strait was entitled to stand down most of them when Esso suspended their services during industrial action, but the FWC has made a preliminary finding that a small yet "significant" portion might have been unauthorised.
An experienced former employer-clientele lawyer turned HR manager has suggested that one way of discouraging paid agents from pursuing "unwinnable" cases is to introduce a "threshold" settlement amount below which they cannot charge clients for their services.
The FWC has rejected an employer's bid to limit the amount of confidential employee information it must give an independent agent ahead of a protected action ballot, while it has also refused to amend the proposed PABO to include a safety commitment.
The FWC should look to the South Australian paid agent model because its registration criteria and disciplinary powers for code of conduct breaches are superior to the Western Australian system, the WA IRC's registrar says in a submission to the FWC's consultation on options to rein in "challenging paid agent conduct".
A Newcastle-based church unfairly summarily dismissed a worker when it took the view that no-one vaccinated against COVID-19 could work for it because it viewed the inoculation as "the world's largest ever untested medical experiment", and retrospectively applied the policy to the worker without warning.
The MEU has lodged the second application to test the Closing Loopholes "same job, same pay" changes, this time aiming to lift the pay of Programmed labour hire workers at a NSW coal mine by $30,000 to $40,000, with many more claims planned.
The Law Reform Commission has recommended legal changes to substantially narrow the circumstances in which religious educational institutions can discriminate against their workers.
The FWC bench appointed to scrutinise a paid agent's future involvement in adverse action and unfair dismissal cases has asked a first tranche of 46 applicants to explain why they need to be represented by a firm recently described as having engaged in "unethical" practices.
