A FWC full bench has reinforced that a member did not expressly condemn using medicinal marijuana for pain management in a safety-critical role because it was not relevant to considering whether a council harshly sacked a worker who switched prescriptions to one containing THC.
In a warning for employers about properly educating workers on workplace policies, the FWC has reinstated an employee dismissed for breaching drug and alcohol rules, because the major company failed to ensure its workforce understood a key change.
A TWU delegate and rubbish truck driver who drank six beers at a union event but suggested his David Beckham cologne and sanitiser might explain his low-level positive reading for alcohol at work the next morning has failed to overturn his sacking.
In a warning to employers about ambiguous drug and alcohol policies, the FWC has in a 50-page decision highlighted the "inadequacy" of a multinational company's code as being among the reasons for reinstating a wharfie sacked for cocaine use.
The FWC has awarded $20,000 to an on-hire mineworker sacked after testing positive for anti-depressants, finding that more consideration should have been given to his "genuine misunderstanding" of the host's new drug policy.
A FWC full bench has refused to overturn the dismissal of a worker in a safety-critical role, upholding a member's finding that the seriousness of the worker's three positive drug tests outweighed procedural shortcomings.
Virgin Australia has failed to reverse the reinstatement of a flight attendant sacked for drinking a glass of prosecco within eight hours of a shift, and further accused of breaching its fatigue management policy by having s-x after requesting a shift change due to tiredness.
A worker's continued refusal to take responsibility for a workplace car accident and his "highly inappropriate" emails criticising the investigation of the collision warranted his dismissal, the FWC has ruled.
A FWC presidential member has lambasted a union's legal team for leaving an illiterate member "high and dry" when deciding not to pursue a "more than arguable" dismissal challenge that ultimately led to reinstatement with full backpay.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a long-serving Queensland Rail protection officer who took cocaine on the morning of his rostered night shift and claimed he only started using the drug to cope with the stress of a workplace investigation.