The FWC has upheld the summary dismissal of a forklift driver, after he left work to avoid a drug test, claiming that he had an "accident" in his trousers.
A Coles worker sacked for "interacting" with shoplifters in defiance of company policy has had her one-minute-late adverse action application binned, after the FWC rejected her bid to "pin" responsibility on the SDA, while at the same time affirming that the deadline is not a "mere technicality".
The FWC has accepted a casual worker's five-weeks-late unfair dismissal claim after finding that the employer gave him the impression that his employment would continue pending an investigation, and then ignored any further contact attempts.
A FWC member has found no plausible reason for a boilermaker's co-workers and managers to conspire to have him sacked for allegedly drawing a p-nis on a client's fuel tanker, concluding that the more likely explanation lay in a colleague's suggestion that he simply had a "brain fart".
The FWC has extended time for a worker's unfair dismissal claim by 24 days because his employer, which "flouted its legal employment obligations and ignored the FWO", withheld his payslips and employment contract, preventing him from identifying the entity that employed him.
The FWC has granted a worker a one day extension for his unfair dismissal claim due to the merits of his case, after he alleged his employer summarily dismissed him for a positive drug test taken during a period of annual leave, when its zero tolerance policy would not apply.
In a case that weighs up employer rights when conducting investigations under commonly-used agreement provisions, a FWC full bench has rejected a worker's request for an investigation report that details his alleged misconduct, but has suggested the employer re-open its probe because it denied him natural justice.
A FWC member has refused a multinational company's bid for him to stand aside from an AMWU delegate's attempt to reverse his sacking for allegedly revealing non-members' names, accepting he "did not sit Sphinx-like" at an interlocutory hearing, but suggesting the employer should have properly considered his comments in context instead of "cherry-picking".
The FWC has ruled that just as a dismissal only takes effect when it is communicated to the worker, a resignation can equally only apply when the employer becomes aware of it.
