The FWC has upheld the flawed sacking of a health and safety manager after phone records revealed she sent an "extraordinary and unacceptable" amount of text messages at work while overseeing her growing side business.
The FWC has found a law firm's lack of competence and "grossly unprofessional" conduct primarily to blame for the late unfair dismissal claim of a worker who breached a vaccine mandate, but it has refused to grant a one-day extension due to her role in the delay.
FWC President Iain Ross has refused to refer to a full bench "questions of law" from a health worker and a group of Virgin employees seeking declarations that it is illegal to threaten those breaching vaccine mandates with the sack and that a "non-covid injected person" is no risk.
The FWC has upheld, despite some procedural failings, the ACTU's dismissal of a call centre employee over Facebook posts that "cheered on" an anti-vaccine mandate campaign, applauded aggression against police, mocked domestic violence, disparaged black people and vilified transgender people.
A worker who unsuccessfully sought to take long service leave after Bulla Dairy Foods rejected medical exemption evidence from a since-suspended doctor has failed to establish it unfairly sacked him for breaching a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The Federal Court has criticised the ABCC's "misrepresentation" of evidence in pleadings and a media release, concluding the watchdog bore some responsibility for a subsequent report in a national newspaper that wrongly stated that a CFMMEU organiser made a "throat-slitting" gesture to a truck driver.
In a significant ruling on dismissals deemed harsh by the FWC, a full bench has endorsed the "unorthodox" approach taken by a member who ordered the reinstatement of a forklift driver who breached an employer's "no mobile phones" policy.
Mining unions have failed to convince a senior FWC member that BHP's vaccination mandate breaches the Privacy Act and that it would be reasonable to let workers confirm their inoculation status via the same check-in method they use to enter a pub.
