An employee who was sacked for misconduct that occurred while he was off duty has failed to convince the Fair Work Commission his dismissal was unfair.
The Fair Work Commission has found two employees were unfairly dismissed for making s-xual comments about a female colleague over a workplace chat system, ruling only one message breached its policies.
Some workplace cultures enable sexual harassment more than others, and employers shouldn't wait for complaints before addressing risks, an expert says.
The Fair Work Ombudsman will now approach compliance and enforcement with greater flexibility as a result of "dramatically changed economic conditions" caused by the coronavirus.
An employer "overplayed its hand" when issuing a JobKeeper-enabling direction that reduced an employee's hours by 40%, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
In this redundancy update, an employer has to pay redundancy entitlements after reduced an employee's hours; an employee is denied relief after he "effectively sat on his hands" during the redeployment process; and two employers lose their applications to reduce redundancy payouts.
A casual employee whose shifts were cancelled has failed to claim he was unfairly dismissed, with the Fair Work Commission ruling his employment ended after a "breakdown in communication".
The High Court has begun hearing an appeal over how much personal leave employees working non-standard shifts are entitled to. Also in this article: a roundup of dismissal rulings and JobKeeper disputes; extensions to COVID-19 award changes; and more.
Two employers have failed to convince a Federal Court full bench that employees weren't entitled to redundancy pay because their dismissals were due to "ordinary" turnover of labour following a contract loss.
Costly legal disputes continue to highlight the many risks employers face when managing, disciplining, or dismissing employees while they are absent, injured or incapacitated. Attend this webinar for an up-to-date review of the legal framework applying to workplace absenteeism, injury and incapacity, and lessons from recent case law.
