Today's High Court ruling doesn't set a precedent for suppression of workplace protests outside of the specific circumstances of Tasmanian forestry operations, according to Adelaide University Professor of Law Andrew Stewart.
The majority of a full High Court has today found that parts of Tasmania's laws against workplace protests in forestry and related areas are invalid because they offend the Constitution's implied freedom of political communication.
In a landmark judgment upholding a casual employee's right to convert to permanency on a "like for like" basis, the Federal Court has concluded it should fine Toll more than $40,000 and order it to compensate a freight handler for refusing to grant his request for full-time employment from May last year.
A company that allegedly told a 62-year old salesperson that he was too old, too deaf and was "hobbling around" with a "broken back" he would use to make a workers compensation claim has been ordered to pay $15,000 for "pain, suffering and humiliation" as part of a larger damages payout for age and disability discrimination.
The FWC has found it has no basis to suspend industrial action by CEPU members at the Australian Submarine Corporation, because a campaign of 162 half-hour stopworks is yet to begin, but has warned it would be likely to issue orders to provide for an agreement ballot in a strike-free environment if circumstances change.
An FWC full bench has granted permission to appeal the sacking by resources giant FMG of an employee just one week into a six-week performance improvement plan (PIP), but has cautioned against interpreting its ruling as suggesting that employers must always see such processes through to the end.
The Queensland Government will push for Australia's first State industrial manslaughter laws to go national at next year's review of the model OHS laws, IR Minister Grace Grace's office has confirmed.
Coalition senators, in a new Senate inquiry report, have rejected concerns about the "ensuring integrity" bill that introduces a public interest test for union mergers, while minority Labor and Greens senators have dismissed the legislation as "politically-driven" and "politically-motivated".
An FWC full bench has upheld a decision that found workers should be paid for unworked overtime hours under an inclement weather provision that applies to enterprise agreements across the Icthys LNG project near Darwin.
