An employer who sought to "retrofit" a requirement for workers to have a clean police record should have obtained external HR advice to avoid unfairly sacking a storeworker over his criminal past, the FWC has found.
Seven West Media says it will apply to terminate an enterprise agreement covering about 1300 employees unless it breaks a bargaining deadlock, making it arguably the highest-profile employer to pursue such a manoeuvre.
Armaguard has been ordered to reinstate two security guards sacked for their part in a "string of failures" that resulted in almost $60,000 cash being stolen, the FWC finding that the company failed to take into account numerous mitigating circumstances.
The FWC has praised the "extraordinary lengths" an employer took to support a worker suffering from domestic violence before it sacked her for failing to improve her attendance.
Westpac was entitled to dismiss a premium client manager for putting customer service ahead of protecting their personal information when he loaned his allegedly troublesome work phone to a visiting relative and used his private Gmail account as a workaround for the bank's "slow" internal email system, the FWC has found.
The FWC has ordered an employment agency to pay 26 weeks' wages in compensation to a job placement officer it sacked for failing to declare convictions for Centrelink fraud, the tribunal criticising an HR manager's handling of the process while pouring water on claims that a clean record was an "inherent requirement" of her job.
Just months after employers called on the Coalition to consider installing seven new FWC members, pointedly highlighting the number of ALP appointees, the Morrison Government has announced five new deputy presidents and a commissioner, many with strong links to the business sector.
The FWC should continue to be the "quality filter" for approving default superannuation funds in awards, according to newly-installed industry super overseer Greg Combet.
