A database manager's "wise" choice at the time not to challenge his summary sacking for falsifying timesheets contrasted with his "ill advised" decision to contest it in the FWC, a tribunal member has observed.
The FWC has backed a ferry operator's sacking of a customer service worker who proved unable to meet the requirements of her role due to deep vein thrombosis, finding it could not offer "reasonable adjustments" to accommodate her incapacity.
An early childhood education trainee has won more than $10,000 compensation after the FWC found her employer had no reason to sack her by text based on "vague" examples of misconduct and failure to complete a qualification for which she had not yet been assessed.
A FWC full bench has upheld the reinstatement of a senior academic dismissed for sending "intimate and romantic" messages to a PhD student he supervised.
The FWC has rejected the unfair dismissal claim of a Workpac on-hire trades assistant shunted from a BHP Coal mine while on approved leave, finding it a redundancy regardless of whether the host engaged someone else in the role.
A fair work commissioner has extended time for a worker who drove 170km to hand-deliver his unfair dismissal claim, saying "unfortunate" is too gentle a word for delays that left the original languishing in the tribunal's shared mailbox at Hobart's Commonwealth Courts building.
In what stands as an object lesson in how not to handle performance reviews, the FWC has highlighted the role of "managerial cowardice" and a passive HR department while reinstating a senior academic who received an "exceeds expectations" score shortly before three colleagues formally complained about her conduct.
The FWC's longest-serving member has provided a detailed exposition of the tribunal's approach to suppression orders, reinforcing that it is not merely about "public understanding" of her reasons for finding that an employer did not force an experienced HR manager to resign after less than five months in the job.
A worker has been allowed to proceed with an out-of-time unfair dismissal application after his employer failed to tell him he had been taken off the roster, "dangled" the prospect of future shifts in front of him for almost a year, and led him to believe he remained on the books.
The FWC has ruled that a Civmec electrical engineer who rejected an alternative role has no entitlement to a redundancy payment, finding the employer adequately explained its offer despite its "clumsy and at times misguided" approach.
