Managers set the tone for respectful and harassment-free workplaces and should be careful when taking part in a swearing culture, the Queensland IRC has stressed in awarding an injured worker compensation.
The anti-bullying application that led to a finding that the Fair Work Commission could consider pre-2014 incidents in such cases has been dismissed because the applicant's employer isn't a constitutionally-covered business.
The Fair Work Commission has ordered a workplace bully to refrain from commenting on his victim's clothes or appearance, as well as imposing a condition on the victim, in its first substantive anti-bullying order.
Employers in the minerals industry are being encouraged to train supervisors and managers to identify mental ill health and resist "macho" cultures, while the Western Australian Government has injected $500,000 into the Men's Shed movement.
The Fair Work Commission has examined the pros and cons of using saliva and urine tests to detect drugs in workers, in finding it would be unreasonable for an employer to conduct confirmatory urine tests on workers who return non-negative results in oral tests.
New Zealand's new workplace bullying prevention guide is superior to Australia's for a number of reasons, including that it recognises "institutional bullying", which helps employers determine if their culture is creating the problem, an OHS consultant says.
The Fair Work Commission has found that it can consider work incidents that occurred before January when determining applications for stop-bullying orders, and rejected an employer's claim that bullying was legally "neutral" before the new anti-bullying provisions took effect.
Two train drivers - one with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and another who suffered a stroke - were fairly sacked after being off work for more than 18 months, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
A former Quarantine employee who claimed workers' compensation nine years after allegedly sustaining a bullying-related psych injury, and then failed to appeal against an AAT decision in favour of Comcare within the required time, has had his case thrown out by the Federal Court.
