Employment

Baby food producer Bellamy’s has hit back at a $400,000 lawsuit by its former chief executive officer, saying she was sacked because of “poor financial performance” and not because she complained about sex discrimination. 

The legal industry has praised the historic appointment of Debra Mortimer as the first female Chief Justice of the Federal Court, noting her modern approach to managing cases and compassionate nature. 

Gender pay gap data for approximately 40 per cent of the Australian workforce will soon be made public under reforms that passed into law on Thursday.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s former boss Emma Dunch has discontinued her unfair dismissal case in which she claimed she was terminated for investigating multiple claims of sexual harassment by musicians.

A judge overseeing a $129 million underpayments class action against hospitality giant Merivale has rejected a bid for a second round of opt out notices, finding that even if the first round went straight to employees’ junk or spam folders, it did not follow that they had not been read.

A judge hearing a lawsuit by an ex-Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills partner seeking $13 million in compensation from his former firm and Lendlease has ordered that the court first decide whether new whistleblower protections apply retrospectively.

A wife employed by her barrister husband can seek compensation for unpaid wages because the claim is based on their employment relationship not their marital relationship, a court has held.

Hospitality giant Merivale is contesting a bid by the applicant in a $129 million underpayments class action to issue a second opt out notice to employees, which it said was an attempt to ensure group members “take an interest” in the proceedings.

The Greens are pushing for reforms that would give employees the ‘right to disconnect’ by prohibiting employers from contacting them outside of work hours.

A director at office leasing company Cushman & Wakefield who accepted a job with a competitor has lost a bid to lift an injunction keeping her on garden leave for three months, with a judge finding she was the “author of her own misfortune” for failing to read her employment contract.