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PM says IR changes won't cut real wages; "Caring" employer fends off computer programmer's bias claim; and Foreign exchange expert makes unfair contract claims over sales commissions.

A NSW licenced club has been ordered to pay $17,500 in damages to a waitress who was sexually harassed by a volunteer cook who was her supervisor.

The Mitcham Frankston motorway project joint venturers, in their agreements certified today by the AIRC, have won significant rostering flexibility that is not available under the Victorian construction industry pattern agreement, but unions say the company is paying for the increased flexibility.

In an unusual unfair contract case, an Australian teacher claims she was sacked by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church after she alleged her daughter had been sexually abused by other church employees whilst working in Papua New Guinea.

The Democrats have made it clear that they won't countenance support for the Government's legislation giving small businesses a blanket exemption from severance pay obligations. However, they are ready before they lose the Senate balance of power in July to widen the current grounds for excusing small employers from paying.

Paid maternity leave in the UK will increase to nine months by 2007 and to 12 months within five years, under a proposal by the Blair Government, which is expected to go electors in May.

A House of Representatives committee report on long-term strategies for addressing the ageing population recommends that the PM John Howard's Community Business Partnership should "explicitly advocate" that improved employment opportunities for mature workers be included in triple bottom line reporting.

A Government-controlled parliamentary committee has today recommended axing FBT on childcare to increase participation in the workforce as the population ages.

Employees can have an implied entitlement to severance pay even when it is not written into their employment contract, a WA IRC full bench has found.

Recent AIRC costs decisions show the dangers of going ahead with unfair dismissal cases that have poor prospects of success, while an AIRC full bench has rejected an Australian Taxation Office employee's bid to have a $19,000 unfair dismissal compensation payment replaced with an order for reinstatement.