Browsing: Industrial/employment issues | Page 7

A worker who was required to take on management duties and sack a worker, despite not being trained in such processes, has been awarded compensation for a psychological injury, with a commission rejecting her employer's reasonable-action defence.

• Safety sign-off deception leads to electrical injuries;
  
• New WHS provisions commencing in WA soon; and
  
• Employers told to utilise WHS "snapshots" in Tas.

A psychologically injured worker has been given the green light to pursue an unfair dismissal remedy, after his employer wrongly determined, from his prolonged absence, that he had abandoned his employment.

A regulator's claim that to prevent double-dipping it is entitled to recover compensation payments from a worker who received a s-x-discrimination settlement, could, if accepted, have a "chilling effect on the bringing of such complaints" and undermine anti-discrimination laws, a full Federal Court has warned.

Two PCBUs that failed to consult on task planning and mechanical aids have been fined over a teenager's death, while a business owner with a long history of safety breaches has been fined for endangering motorists through the performance of "poor quality" work next to a highway.

A commissioner did not make a mistake when he ordered an employer to reinstate a worker, who had undergone spinal surgery, without explicitly finding he was capable of safely carrying out his role, a full bench has found.

A full Federal Court has partially overturned a ruling made against a union and an official accused of refusing to comply with a worksite's WHS requirements, finding the site's rules only required the official to be "accompanied" rather than "escorted".

A sacked worker has unsuccessfully argued his sarcastic comments about a co-worker being "m-lested" didn't constitute workplace s-xual harassment, but won his unfair dismissal case.

A worker has failed to overturn a decision that events in her personal life overshadowed the links between alleged workplace bullying and harassment and her aggravated psychological condition.

A major employer's failure to consult workers on a controversial WHS mandate created a "paradigm of opposition" in the workforce and led to a large number of workers being unfairly dismissed, a commission has ruled in a 529-paragraph judgment.