The FWC has upheld the sacking of a long-serving Woolworths warehouse worker who took almost 100 days off in the last year alone, finding the supermarket giant's leniency over many years did not preclude it from switching to a stricter approach.
The FWC has criticised a government department's premature destruction of CCTV footage that might have revealed the truth about a sacked bus cleaner's alleged theft of a handbag left on board.
The FWC has acceded to an employer's request to pay compensation of $44,450 in instalments, but has tightened the proposed timeframe, after a worker with almost a decade of service requested a pay rise and the director responded "you have me by the b-lls", before dismissing him suddenly by text message.
A labour supplier could not be expected to force the host to change its stance on revoking an on-hire worker's site access for conduct the employer found only warranted a warning, but validly dismissed him for his inability to perform his job's inherent requirements due to his expulsion, the FWC has found.
A mineworker has won reinstatement after her sacking for revealing the email addresses of 850 workers in a fundraising blast, the FWC warning employers in the process about the need to maintain distance between dismissal decision-makers and those "involved directly in the facts" of a matter.
A FWC full bench has reinstated a rubbish truck driver sacked for a low-level alcohol reading, finding that the initial decision relied on reasons the employer had not put forward, without considering whether the driver had an opportunity to respond.
The FWC has ordered reinstatement for a professor who sent "intimate and romantic" messages to a student, including a photo of himself in his boxers, finding that his seven-year unblemished record since his recently-uncovered relationship mitigated his behaviour.
A worker who threatened his managers that he would set bikies on them and that he had "a bullet with your name on it" resigned in the "heat of the moment" and should have been given the chance to retract it, but the FWC has upheld his dismissal because his menacing behaviour amounted to serious misconduct.
A FWC full bench has upheld the reinstatement of a wharfie who tested positive for cocaine, rejecting employer arguments that the Commission's approach to appeals is "broadly wrong" and should involve reassessing a case rather than searching for errors in the original decision.
In a genuine redundancy ruling, the FWC has confirmed that it simply needs to consider whether employers have notified a retrenchment in writing, rather than whether they have provided notice in "the most optimum manner".
