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.
In a decision closely considering when homelessness can provide the "exceptional circumstances" necessary to warrant extending time, the FWC has agreed to hear a one-day late claim after hearing the applicant spent a fortnight after his dismissal sleeping in his car.
The FWC has rejected an employer's bid to avoid paying redundancy entitlements to a nurse who refused to transfer to a higher-paying, non-nursing "technician" role.
A Senate inquiry is calling for guidance on what will qualify as a "reasonable excuse" for failing to comply with a Bill requiring employers with 500 or more workers to set new publicly-tracked gender equality targets that could determine eligibility for government contracts, while the Greens want to lower the threshold to 100 or more employees.
A DEWR review of the procedures available for small claims of up to $100,000 recommends legislative change to enable successful applicants to win costs and an automatic exemption from filing fees in some circumstances, while it also canvasses establishing a small claims jurisdiction within the FWC or creating an industrial court.
In a decision weighing how close to "perfection" an employee's standards need to be, the FWC has upheld the sacking of an experienced scientist accused of "manipulating" data for a single BHP soil sample among thousands he helped test.
Ahead of a 10-day full bench hearing of a bid to significantly shake-up the retail award, the ACTU has hit out at employers backing measures to "buy-out" core conditions for workers on as little as $53,680 a year, ditch "smokos" and introduce split shifts.
A large childcare operator has been ordered to pay more than $8000 compensation to a sacked worker falsely accused of telling a parent about her tenuous visa status in supposed breach of a company policy found by the FWC to impose no constraint on such interactions.
A former organiser who claims the UWU sacked her for exacerbating post-amalgamation "tensions" by pushing for a staff agreement has won a three-month extension to file her second unfair dismissal application, after a full bench found her first one barred as she lodged it while pursuing an adverse action case.
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.
