Employment

Slater and Gordon has won a bid to strike out parts of a cross-claim seeking injury compensation for alleged bullying at the law firm brought by a solicitor accused of stealing clients after jumping ship.

Qantas has been hit with a test case to determine whether axing 2,000 ground staff and replacing them with "insecure" labour hire workers is unlawful.

A sacked Norton Rose Fulbright partner is challenging a $160,000 award handed down by a judge who found the law firm intentionally deceived him in litigation over his dismissal, arguing the sum is "manifestly inadequate".

Casual workers will have the option of permanent employment after 12 months under the Morrison government's industrial relations omnibus bill to be unveiled this week, but the legislation will also scale back what damages casuals can pocket in legal action over misclassification.

The applicant in a class action against labour hire firm One Key Resources has lost a lawsuit seeking preliminary discovery of liability insurance policies to potentially add One Key Workforce to the proceeding.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has succeeded in striking out claims that it made misrepresentations to Rio Tinto when it appointed a partner nearing the mandatory retirement age to a five-year project with the mining giant.

PricewaterhouseCoopers won't get a chance to seek summary dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a former company director who claims her notice of termination through DocuSign was invalid and that she was denied entitlements, with a judge saying the former employee had a claim and that the parties needed to "just get on with it".

The Fair Work Ombudsman has won nearly $140,000 in penalties against a Brisbane cafe and its owners for paying workers partly in food and drink over the course of six months.

An employment partner at Norton Rose Fulbright has defended his destruction of notes following an internal investigation into allegations of bullying at the law firm, telling a Federal Circuit Court judge that this was "standard practice".

An employment partner with Norton Rose Fulbright, who has been referred by a judge to the legal watchdog for possible professional misconduct in a case by a former colleague, is under scrutiny in a second Fair Work suit, this time for allegedly destroying evidence.