In a case that underlines the Commission's challenges in dealing with self-represented parties, a FWC member has refused to step back from hearing an anti-bullying claim, finding that a worker's 18 grounds for recusal, including the "unjust removal" of the worker's advocate from a hearing, had "no logical connection" with any possibility of bias.
A FWC member has rejected claims that she "badgered" a worker seeking anti-bullying orders after establishing that, contrary to his version of events, he would not be required to provide supporting documents until he "pressed the button" on arbitration.
The FWC has told two drone operators to trim their anti-bullying claims against officers from regulatory authority CASA after emphasising that its jurisdiction does not extend to picking over another body's administrative decisions in isolation.
Misinterpretation of "curt or abrupt" messages between a remote manager and worker and "unhelpful" accusations of "frivolous and vexatious" complaints did not amount to bullying, but the manager might have needed support to better supervise his remote team, the FWC has found.
A FWC member has permitted an anti-bullying hearing to go ahead despite her concerns that the worker and her representative misled the tribunal when they denied that the worker had accepted a job offer.
In a decision assessing how long a valid reason remains "current", the FWC has overlooked serious procedural deficiencies to back a landscaping business's summary sacking of a gardener almost two months after he called a colleague a "fat exploiter of foreigners".
The FWC has backed a global company's HR processes after dismissing a senior employee's claim that she had no option but to resign when an investigation rejected her portrayal of a male colleague asking her to "get the coffees" during a client workshop as s-xual harassment.
A football club's "deficient" investigation and lack of procedural fairness rendered unfair its sacking of a worker for spreading "false and degrading s-xualised rumours" in the workplace, the FWC has found.
In a decision delving deeply into the statutory definition of bullying, a senior FWC member has observed that allowances should be made for "some degree of exasperation or tension" between managers and those they supervise.
The FWC has waved through a former company director's late unfair dismissal claim after accepting evidence that the deadline fell on the same day as her treatment for a heart condition allegedly exacerbated by her ex-husband "vengefully terminating" her employment.
