A government corporation's HR manager had "zero interest" in discussing workplace COVID-19 vaccination requirements with a worker who justifiably raised the matter under an agreement's dispute terms, the FWC has found.
In a case involving one lawyer accusing another of being "either breathtakingly stupid or complicit in the ongoing fraud", a Federal Court judge has today refused to throw out an adverse action case brought by a storeperson sacked for refusing to wear a mask.
The FWC in upholding the sacking of a worker who ran late every day for nearly four years and kept failing to use its bundy system has also identified her fake vaccination certificate and recommended referring her alleged offence to authorities.
A FWC presidential member has issued a 10-point rebuttal of COVID-19-related arguments put by a sacked unvaccinated worker, to help her to consider whether to proceed with positions likely to be "irrelevant" in her unfair dismissal claim and that have been "emphatically rejected in numerous cases" before the tribunal and courts.
A mining equipment manufacturer that admitted to wrongly sacking a warehouse worker for failing to comply with a government COVID-19 vaccine mandate that did not apply to her must pay more than $33,000 compensation, after the FWC slashed her payout by half.
BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott has called on business leaders to approach the upcoming jobs summit with a view to recreating a "high wage, high productivity" economy, describing the past decade as "the worst for growth in living standards since the Great Depression".
The ACTU has called for employers to "step up" ahead of the forecast peak in COVID-19 numbers by providing leave at full pay for workers who need to isolate or quarantine and distributing free rapid antigen tests to all employees.
The FWC has reinstated a senior Virgin flight attendant accused of tardiness, stealing snacks, sleeping and watching a movie while on duty, finding pandemic-driven loads on HR delayed the airline's investigation and contributed to procedural fairness deficiencies.
The FWC has rejected a CFMMEU bid to determine a stand-down dispute in favour of an unvaccinated concreter who has largely gone unpaid for the past year while he continues to refuse to comply with his employer's direction to be inoculated against COVID-19.
The bid by Qantas to overturn a Federal Court ruling that it took unlawful adverse action against its former ground crew employees argues that some of the Fair Work Act's protected workplace rights are "time bound".
