Australia: Fair Work Commission sets limits on the reach of the anti-bullying jurisdiction

It’s been over a year since the anti-bullying regime under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act) commenced operation, but to the surprise of many, it’s been a slow start.

In the first nine months of 2014, the Fair Work Commission (Commission) received more than 530 applications for orders to stop bullying (Anti-Bullying Orders) but only one of those resulted in Anti-Bullying Orders being made.

Since then, a handful of Anti-Bullying Orders have been made […]

By | March 15th, 2015 ||

Australia: Employer liable for psychiatric injury arising from supervisor’s creepy caravan park detour HG Insurance and Risk Alert: 5 March 2015

The Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) accepted that a female traffic control employee sustained a psychological injury arising from sexual harassment by her supervisor during a car trip.
Facts
On 13 September 2013, Ms Davy (the worker) alleges that her supervisor Mr Mullins (the supervisor) asked her to accompany him on a “monitoring” trip in his vehicle.

The worker said she became distressed when the supervisor missed the exit and refused to advise where he was taking her.

The […]

By | March 14th, 2015 ||

Canada: Duty To Accommodate: If Only We Knew Back Then What We know Now. Actually, We Did And The Complaint Should Have Been Dismissed A Long Time Ago

IBM moved to have this complaint dismissed at a preliminary stage because of the Commission’s delay in bringing the complaint forward for many years after it was first brought to IBM’s attention.  I had reason in dealing with that motion to review the correspondence at the early stages of the complaint, and in particular the responses to the complaint provided by IBM’s corporate counsel.  I was impressed then by these responses … I can […]

By | March 13th, 2015 ||