Employment

Cleaning services giant Spotless has been charged for allegedly shortchanging 13 former employees $17,500 in long service leave entitlements.

The Full Court has dealt a blow to a sacked Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills partner seeking $13 million in compensation from his former firm and Lendlease, finding new whistleblower protections do not apply retrospectively to cover his claims.

The former general counsel of UK-based transit payment provider Littlepay has lost her lawsuit alleging she faced a hostile workplace when she returned from maternity leave and was dismissed for making complaints about the company's CEO and another global executive.

A judge has said that an underpayments class action's challenge to hospitality giant Merivale's argument that it does not owe back wages because it relied on an enterprise agreement it believed was valid should be heard before trial. 

A psychiatrist who gave expert evidence in a lawyer’s human rights case against his former employer cannot be sued for negligence because he is protected by witness immunity, a judge has found. 

A former Qantas customer service manager can't undo a $75,000 settlement she reached to resolve a workers compensation claim in order to pursue a discrimination suit against the airline, a court has found.

A judge has panned as “thoroughly unsatisfactory” a draft notice informing group members in an underpayments class action against the federal government that only claims on behalf of postgraduate research students at the University of Sydney will continue.

South Australian MP Rebekha Sharkie has been hit with an employment suit by a former staffer who says she was subjected to “a course of bullying behaviour” by the MP that culminated in a stress-related hospitalisation and left her unable to work.

Ernst & Young has been hit with a discrimination suit by a former Asia Pacific director, who alleges she was fired after making complaints of bullying, harassment and discrimination.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has agreed to backpay thousands of branch staff $3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it failed to provide employees with paid rest breaks for at least six years.