A four-member FWC full bench has overturned the reinstatement of a long-serving train driver sacked after he divulged he faced criminal charges for high-range drink driving, ruling that a presidential member failed to properly consider the connection between his out-of-hours conduct and his safety-critical job.
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.
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.
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.
The Federal Court has today thrown out an urgent interlocutory bid to stop Qantas Group dismissing more than 20 employees who failed to meet its mid-November vaccination deadline.
The FWC has "reluctantly" held that Airservices Australia's agreement does not prevent it from investigating the alleged out-of-hours touching of a worker's breast in a rideshare, despite dealing with it "to finality" four years ago.
A Westpac manager accused of directing s-xual comments and inappropriate GIFs to female colleagues in online team meetings claims in an adverse action case that his sacking was in fact motivated by his own complaints of age discrimination, bullying and overwork.
The FWC has declined to extend time for an unvaccinated worker who claimed he lodged his claim late because of the theft of 45 one-kilogram silver bars from his home, while it has upheld a nursing home's sacking of a maintenance manager who failed to comply with a State Government inoculation mandate.
