Back in 2011 the legal community was atwitter on hearing that Ms Fraser-Kirk settled her claim for sexual harassment against chief executive Mark McInnes and David Jones for $850,000.  Her original claim for damages was for $37 million.                       

An informed analysis of damages claims ordered by courts in previous cases indicated that the range of damages for moderate sexual harassment cases was between $5,000 and $30,000. 

In 2010, the AWMU published a warning to company directors on its website, saying “if you turn your back on employees, we will fight you all the way.”  The warning was delivered in the context of a case which the AWMU and AWU fought in the Federal Court of Australia.

Any employer which has gone through the process of negotiating and making an enterprise agreement with its employees and seeking approval of the agreement from the Fair Work Commission (FWC) will know that the process and approval requirements can be complex and time consuming and that the requirements for approval are quite technical.

The anti-bulling jurisdiction of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has now been in place for over 4 months, and the first decision ruling on the merits of an application has been handed down.

 The hearing of the application was conducted in private, and the names of the parties and individuals involved were kept anonymous in the published decision.  In that decision, the FWC rejected a manager’s claim for anti-bullying orders, finding that there was insufficient evidence there had been repeated unreasonable behaviour towards the applicant, or that any unreasonable behaviour had created a risk to health and safety.