Maurice Blackburn's head of employment and industrial law, Josh Bornstein, says damages for discrimination and harassment "remain persistently low" but he expects an upwards trajectory as their impact has been "laid bare" and expectations are now clearer.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a kitchen hand who turned up intoxicated in his own time to prepare for his next shift, but has berated the employer over its "failure to exercise basic decency" when leaving him to find his own way home.
Employers should consider modifying working conditions for pregnant women to mitigate premature birth risks, according to a Monash University study that found risks increased with physically demanding jobs, long hours, shiftwork, and exposure to whole-body vibration.
The Nobel Prize for economic sciences has been awarded to a Harvard professor who has a penchant for historical detective work, digging into gender differences in labour markets that stretch back to the eighteenth century.
The FWC has reinstated a worker dismissed for allegedly trying to extend her annual leave by taking sick leave, which the employer viewed as a "dishonest" attempt to mislead it.
The NTEU is calling for urgent change, after its latest survey found that "s-xual harassment, s-xism, and gender-based bias in tertiary education workplaces continues to be largely ignored and as a result remains firmly entrenched in our universities".
The FWC has ordered a Gold Coast cabaret club to compensate two workers it sacked after intercepting private social media discussions about a colleague's pay, finding it treated them like they had broken into its equivalent of the Watergate complex to expose key secrets over WikiLeaks.
DP World is calling on the MUA to call off further protected action at the company's container terminals from Sunday to enable further bargaining negotiations, warning it is actively looking into "alternatives" to maintain services.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a mineworker for failing to disclose his use of prescription medicinal cannabis on his days off, despite the fact he passed all drug tests and left a 32-hour buffer before the start of his working weeks.
