Employment

The director of a Melbourne law firm has been reprimanded and fined $10,000 for sending two letters to opposing counsel accusing him of being dishonest, following a protracted nine-year legal battle.

The Full Federal Court has upheld a ruling that the CFMEU was "knowingly concerned" in the refusal of union officers to produce entry permits at a Queensland building site, with the appeals court saying it was"difficult" to understand how the union was not an accessory to the contraventions of its employees.

Brisbane-based law firm Tucker Cowen and three of its principals are facing an unfair dismissal case by a former special counsel who exited the firm earlier this year.

An appeals court has overturned a $435,000 win for solicitor Zagi Kozarov, a former prosecutor in the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions specialist sexual offences unit, in her case blaming her working conditions for her severe post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

The Victorian government on Monday launched a pilot scheme to give casual and insecure workers up to five days' sick and carer's pay, but the plan earned scathing criticism from business groups and Attorney-General Christian Porter, who labelled it a business killer.

A finding this week that Norton Rose Fulbright intentionally misled a former lawyer in an employment dispute and abused the court’s processes threatens the legal career of an equity partner at the firm and is a warning to all firms to think twice before representing themselves in cases involving soured professional relationships.

A court has ruled that an arbitration proceeding before the Fair Work Commission does not doom a Federal Court lawsuit brought by the civilian air traffic controllers union against government-owned Airservices.

A judge has declined to throw out a lawsuit brought against Qantas by a self-represented worker who was stood down, saying a "liberal and lenient" approach was needed.

Mining services company Thiess has lost its challenge to a class action ruling which found the company had underpaid workers for time spent on the bus travelling home from a Pilbara-based liquefied natural gas processing plant owned by Woodside Energy.

The Australian arm of multinational cosmetics company Lush has back-paid over 3,000 employees more than $4 million and entered into a "stringent" enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman.