The FWC has compensated a worker sacked for making "racist" comments, finding her employer's handling of her dismissal "appalling" and that it had been "very unfair to label her a racist person".
In what it claims is its first litigation seeking to have a holding company found responsible for its subsidiaries' breaches, the FWO has initiated court action against ASX-listed Super Retail Group for self-reported underpayments of more than $1 million that led to an internal audit and backpayments exceeding $50 million that the watchdog says remain short of the mark.
The FWC has reinstated a mineworker sacked by a Yancoal subsidiary for aggressive and threatening behaviour in which he threatened to cut a co-worker's throat, finding the dismissal harsh because of his unblemished 12-year tenure, his remorse and his PTSD.
In finding a worker with an oral contract an independent contractor, the FWC has affirmed that the principles of Personnel Contracting apply whether the contract is written, oral or some combination and has suggested that the previously-used "multifactorial approach" didn't necessarily cause "chaos", but created "legal and commercial uncertainty".
Woolworths has told the Senate work and care inquiry that 37.4% of its casuals accepted offers to convert from casual to permanent, which chair Barbara Pocock says is much higher than the committee has otherwise heard.
BHP Minerals has failed to establish that almost $20,000 in education assistance it paid to a mining engineer pushed him above the high income threshold for unfair dismissal protection, after it chose not to exercise its right to recoup the payments.
The FWC will permit a security company to use telephone recordings of worker's allegedly "extremely offensive" conversations with colleagues in defending his unfair dismissal claim, finding it in line with telecommunications interception laws and surveillance clauses in his contract.
A FWC full bench has overturned the approval of the Mantle Group's Hot Wok agreement, accusing it of "deliberate manipulation of the statutory process of making enterprise agreements" and is considering referring the company's senior HR manager to the AFP for potential criminal prosecution for deliberately providing false or misleading information to the tribunal.
The Federal Court has restrained a Federal agency from sacking an employee it accused of lying about the disciplinary action that led to her resigning from her previous APS job.
A judge has dismissed a worker's claims of disability discrimination and adverse action and upheld his sacking for aggressive workplace behaviour, finding that he should have told his employer upfront of his mental health issues and his autism diagnosis.
