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.
An environmental consultancy fluffed its summary dismissal of a technician for alleged timesheet fraud when it had a watertight case to sack him for poor performance, the FWC has found.
A FWC presidential member has suggested policymakers give greater consideration to recognising the "industrial qualifications" of migrant workers after ruling an employer unfairly dismissed a factory hand when it made him redundant without consultation due to his unsuccessful attempts to obtain an Australian forklift licence.
An account manager who helped to lure 45 clients to a rival has been ordered to pay $500,000 to his former employer, after a judge highlighted the difficulty of gathering evidence in a case in which one of the manager's mobile phones surfaced after being "immersed in water" and another "met with the unhappy fate of being run over by a lawn mower".
The FWC has found a long-serving BHP Coal worker who had "clearly not adjusted to the modern workplace" s-xually-harassed two colleagues, but a rushed investigative process and lack of a proper opportunity to respond rendered his dismissal unfair.
A shareholding employee sacked by his "toxic" family business for raising his voice at a salesperson has won compensation but missed out on reinstatement due in part to his court bid to wind up the company.
A security company has been ordered to pay more than $40,000 compensation to a former manager after the FWC found its owner/chief executive pressured him to sign a new contract with higher sales targets and broader constraint clauses and then told him to "finish up" when he refused.
A court has awarded a former Laing O'Rourke manager more than $1.5 million in compensation and damages after finding his sacking, for allegedly intimidating property owners during the 2020 bushfire recovery effort, unlawfully interrupted his career trajectory.
A charity ordered to compensate a retrenched financial analyst has been reminded by the FWC that consultation involves "not merely telling a worker" they have been made redundant months after deciding to restructure their team.
A senior FWC member has rounded on a national business's HR team for the "crude" and disrespectful process it followed to make one of its own members redundant, suggesting it engage in some "sober reflection".
