Anti-discrimination and bullying page 10 of 20

The Australian Human Rights Commission has recommended an independent body be established to enforce parliamentary codes of conduct after a third of staffers responding to its workplace review reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment.

The FWC has ordered costs against a worker held to have called a colleague "Gumby", "Dumbo" and "Homer" while on a "connived power trip", finding he could have achieved his bid to clear his name by accepting a generous settlement offer.

A HR manager who won anti-bullying orders after becoming "collateral damage" in her employers' marital dispute has launched a Federal Court adverse action case, claiming it dismissed her for complaining and seeking advice about weekend work and "stress leave".

The Attorney-General's Department will open a consultation process in December on six of the outstanding recommendations in Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins' landmark Respect@Work report, but the Opposition says the timeline leaves no room for legislation ahead of the federal election, expected by May.

An FWC full bench has today found errors in a ruling that upheld a private school's sacking of a 52-year-old teacher for hugging students and other misdeeds, but has refused to overturn it.

A recruitment company's former operations manager, who is claiming $20,000 for the hurt and humiliation flowing from her alleged discriminatory sacking due to her pregnancy, has won more time to pursue her claim, while her employer has failed in its bid for costs against her "neophyte" lawyer, after a court accepted that there had been "a comedy of errors" that fell well short of representative error.

In an "unusual" case against a senior HR officer and an operations manager accused of bullying an area manager who "over-reacted" to a restructure, the FWC says it will close the matter if all agree to a host of recommendations or it will seek more evidence to continue the case.

The FWC has refused to order a worker's general practitioner to hand over medical records as it considers her anti-bullying case, noting that even if the information is relevant, requiring it might have a "harmful impact" on her health and wellbeing.

The FWC has ordered compensation for a bottleshop manager held to have asked a customer "would you like a root hehehe receipt", finding his employer had no excuse for its "procedurally disastrous" sacking after accessing an employer organisation's IR advice.

Resources giant BHP has told a WA parliamentary inquiry that it has terminated six employees for sexual assault and 48 for sexual harassment in its mining operations across the State over the past two years, while Rio Tinto has substantiated one sexual assault and 29 sexual harassment cases in its WA FIFO operations since the start of last year.