The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a 63-year-old male employee who sent text messages calling a 37-year-old male colleague his "bitch" and "toy boy" and threatened to "molest" him and squeeze his testicles until it made him cry.
An experienced Qantas flight attendant who surreptitiously downed a quarter of a bottle of vodka on an 11-hour flight has failed to overturn her dismissal, with the FWC agreeing with the airline that she breached critical safety standards before trying to lie her way out of trouble.
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A CFMMEU official has retained his entry permit despite being heavily fined for his part in a heated worksite stoush, the FWC finding he was acting on "genuine but mistaken" legal advice about his rights.
The FWC has rejected a multi-pronged attempt by four retrenched dockworkers to establish that they were not genuinely redundant, finding their employer's offer to re-engage them as casuals did not detract from its need to reduce its full-time workforce.
There is "no place for bawdy offensive alpha-male behaviour in the workplace", the FWC has found, in upholding the dismissal of a male worker for asking a female colleague for a kiss and telling another co-worker that he wanted to "f-ck" his sister.
An FWC full bench has given a mental health service volunteer another shot at applying for anti-bullying orders after quashing a finding that, because he was participating in a government-funded program to improve his wellbeing, he was not a "worker" according to the federal WHS Act.
A male worker and an employer that pledged to indemnify him after he was accused of sexual assaulting a female colleague have been ordered to jointly pay her $130,000 in damages for pain and suffering and for the company to pay a further $20,000 in aggravated damages, after it conducted a "trenchant defence" of the perpetrator, who took advantage of the young woman after she collapsed at work.
Employers should be subject to a stronger onus to prevent s-xual harassment under the existing positive duty to provide safe workplaces under OHS laws, while the Fair Work Act should be amended to include explicit anti-harassment rights, according to Victoria Legal Aid.
