In a sign of the FWC's growing frustration with not just the number of applications flowing across its desk but the prevalence of applicants dropping off the map, a member has lamented a worker's "disconcerting" failure to engage with the tribunal and the concomitant waste of valuable "time and resources".
A recruiter has failed to win $50,000 compensation from Bluescope Steel for allegedly sacking him following his complaints about being bullied by its HR team, after a judge took into account that he had previously lied to the FWC and "embellished" his résumé.
In a decision highlighting the need to confirm an employee's intentions before taking an ambiguous or emotionally charged exchange to be a resignation, the FWC will continue hearing a farm hand's unfair dismissal case after rejecting the employer's argument that he quit of his own volition.
A Fair Work Commission member has offered a "simpler" approach to determining whether workers' employment ended at the employer's initiative in cases involving alleged abandonment of employment.
The FWC has ordered BHP's labour hire arm to reinstate a worker sacked for saying a female colleague had a "giga-chin" and a "fat -rse", finding he had no idea what the first term meant and that the second accusation, when reframed as "phat -rse", gave it a different complexion.
A barrister who moonlights as an umpire can proceed with her general protections claim against Tennis Australia after the FWC determined that TA employed her as a casual when it blocked her access to tournaments for allegedly breaching undertakings to never criticise its management of the sport.
A FWC full bench has ruled that Corrections Victoria dismissed a prison officer when it demoted and transferred him, clearing the way for him to proceed with his unfair dismissal claim.
The FWC has waved away as "self-inflicted" any financial and reputational harm caused to HR/IT and operations managers hastily sacked by a NDIS provider, pointing to the married couple's apparent purloining of the company's funds and numerous undeclared conflicts of interest as valid reasons for their dismissal.
A sacked crane driver can proceed with his late dismissal challenge after the FWC found the blame lay squarely with his union for belatedly obtaining legal advice about which jurisdiction to file it in.