An employer's failure to give a skipper an opportunity to respond to specific allegations about the circumstances surrounding a charter boat's costly collision with a channel marker did not provide sufficient reason to reverse his dismissal, the FWC has found.
Listed services giant Ventia has been ordered to pay $25,000 compensation after failing to persuade the FWC it had reason to sack a senior employee it claimed divulged commercially sensitive information to its former national hospitality and catering manager over a lunchtime catch-up.
The head contractor on Queensland's largest infrastructure project has failed to win FWC orders to compel hundreds of subcontractors to cross CFMEU picket lines, with the tribunal finding their no-shows did not amount to unprotected action.
FWC President Adam Hatcher has refused to stay an order compelling the UFU to hand over a trust deed for an income protection scheme that Fire Rescue Victoria claims might expose it to a $7 million annual fringe benefits tax liability.
A FWC full bench has upheld the reinstatement of a Sydney Trains employee found to have traces of cocaine in his system, despite ruling that a senior member wrongly concluded that employers need to establish workers who fail drug and alcohol tests are at risk of being "impaired" before sacking them.
The Federal Court has suppressed a Channel Seven producer's statement of claim and other documents lodged in connection with her general protections claim, saying that releasing details of alleged workplace behaviours would reduce the chances of achieving a mediated outcome by taking a "bargaining chip" off the table.
FWC President Adam Hatcher has moved to reassure transport industry employers that the TWU's minimum-standards test cases for gig workers and "last-mile" deliveries will not be hijacked by an advisory group set up by Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt, promising "genuine engagement" and emphasising that the Commission retains control of the "deliberative processes".
The FWC has made it clear that HR managers should not inform employees about company policies as a "tick and flick" exercise, finding an employer harshly sacked a worker who had no understanding of his unacceptable behaviour when he bullied a colleague for supposedly "sucking up" to their manager.
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.
In a warning to employers undertaking investigations of workplace complaints, the FWC has ordered a mushroom grower to compensate a former harvest team leader sacked on the basis of "scanty" hearsay evidence and the "sheer number" of allegations about bullying and racial discrimination.
