The Federal Court has found a childcare centre breached federal adverse action laws by sacking a worker for recruiting union members during an industrial campaign, rejecting its claim it dismissed her for reasons including bullying and harassing a colleague who wouldn't join up.
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 Federal Circuit Court has accepted that taking sides in an ideological split and making a bullying and harassment complaint are protected under the Fair Work Act's adverse action regime, but has rejected an academic's claim that they were the reasons for his redundancy.
In a case on what constitutes a "workplace right", the Federal Circuit Court has refused to throw out an adverse action application by an employee who was dismissed for challenging his employer's professional practices.
Another High Court case on the Fair Work Act's protections for employees engaged in union activity might not be far away, according to a leading IR academic, after the CFMEU's appeal against the Federal Court's BHP Coal "scab-sign" ruling was this morning rejected by a 3-2 majority.
A High Court majority has dismissed the CFMEU's appeal against the Federal Court's decision that BHP Coal did not take adverse action when it dismissed a union delegate when he waved an "anti-scab" sign on a union picket.
A hotel management company that took unlawful adverse action when it stopped giving shifts to a casual bartender who complained of being underpaid has been ordered to pay $11,000 compensation, including a sum for distress, hurt, and humiliation.
The Federal Circuit Court has rejected a costs claim by a company that twice offered an employee money to settle an adverse action case she went on to lose.
The High Court will decide next Thursday whether BHP Coal took adverse action against a mineworker when it sacked him for holding up an anti-"scab" sign at a picket in Queensland's Bowen Basin in 2012.
The Federal Court has criticised a lower court judge for making gratuitous comments about a barrister, but has rejected her argument that he should have stood down from her client's adverse action case because he was biased.
