The High Court has reserved its decision on whether BHP Coal fell foul of the Fair Work Act's adverse action provisions by sacking a worker for breaching its workplace conduct policy after he held up an anti-"scab" sign at a picket.
A part-time HR manager's bullying claim against her chief executive backfired when her employer discovered while investigating her complaint that she had been using its resources to do work for other organisations.
The Federal Court has raised some important questions over whether employees have a "workplace right" to talk to the media about conditions in their workplaces.
Allowing a worker to switch from pursuing an unfair dismissal to a general protections claim after unsuccessful conciliation would allow him "two bites of the cherry", the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
The Federal Circuit Court has hit a transport operator who sacked a driver for taking carer's leave and then terrorised him, his family and his union solicitor when he instituted legal proceedings with close to the maximum penalty for unlawful adverse action.
A court has found that a worker who was asked to look for alternative employment due to his heart condition was dismissed, rejecting his employer's argument that his job ended by "mutual agreement".
In its first ruling on the issue, the Fair Work Commission has decided that unions can include multiple employees in a single general protections application.
A court has found that a law firm acted quickly to investigate claims of harassment by one of its solicitors and was entitled to treat emails from her stating that the employment relationship had broken down as a resignation.
An accounting firm dismissed a client manager because of serious misconduct rather than the "several and various exercises of his workplace rights" in the lead-up to his dismissal, the Federal Circuit Court has found.
The Federal Court has ordered an Xstrata subsidiary to provide the CFMEU's mining division with documents that will enable it to decide whether to include the mining company in an adverse action claim by a delegate who was sidelined after raising safety concerns.