An employer is entitled to direct workers to remove their moustaches or beards to comply with safety policies and manage deadly risks, a commission has ruled in examining WHS laws.
A workplace manager did not bully a worker, but their employer dealt with the worker's grievances "clumsily", allowing misconstrued interactions to build up to a point where the mental health of both employees was affected, a commission has found.
A commission has rejected a worker's allegations that she was forced to resign because her employer failed to shield her from vicarious trauma and its approach to psychological safety was "stuck in the 1990s".
An employer effectively dismissed a worker with autism after it refused to make safety accommodations for him when he reported experiencing sensory and health issues caused by his uniform, a commission has ruled.
A union and one of its officials have been handed fines totalling nearly $37,000, after a court found the latter made a frustrated comment that constituted a threat to the future career of a workplace health and safety manager.
An appeals court has quashed a ruling that the WHS prosecution of a major company was invalid because of the process used to delegate the applicable regulatory powers. Meanwhile, a play centre has been charged with multiple safety breaches after a child fell seven metres.
The High Court has agreed to consider quashing the application of allegedly outdated judgments that bar damages for psychiatric injuries caused by dismissal processes, in the case of a worker who was subjected to a sham dismissal after an incident on a work trip.
A "critical and insensitive" manager who routinely swore at his subordinates in an attempt to motivate them to meet purported "German demands" has lost his adverse action case, with a court finding his behaviour warranted instant dismissal and he wasn't the victim of WHS breaches.
