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.
An engineer who lost a close relative in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict was clearly offended when a manager directed him to move his desk into a project "war room", but his refusal still provided a valid reason for his dismissal, the FWC has found.
A FWC full bench has refused to extend time for a HR business partner seeking to appeal her unfair dismissal decision, finding she had failed to demonstrate any legal errors and instead merely showed "a preference for a different result".
An AMWU delegate sacked for allegedly outing non-union co-workers has been awarded the maximum available compensation after the FWC expressed surprise that his multinational employer's investigation could have been conducted "so badly".
An employer's failure to give a skipper an opportunity to respond to specific allegations about the circumstances surrounding a charter boat's costly collision with a channel marker did not provide sufficient reason to reverse his dismissal, the FWC has found.
A FWC full bench has upheld the reinstatement of a Sydney Trains employee found to have traces of cocaine in his system, despite ruling that a senior member wrongly concluded that employers need to establish workers who fail drug and alcohol tests are at risk of being "impaired" before sacking them.
In a warning to employers undertaking investigations of workplace complaints, the FWC has ordered a mushroom grower to compensate a former harvest team leader sacked on the basis of "scanty" hearsay evidence and the "sheer number" of allegations about bullying and racial discrimination.
An environmental consultancy fluffed its summary dismissal of a technician for alleged timesheet fraud when it had a watertight case to sack him for poor performance, the FWC has found.
The FWC has ruled that an intoxicated FIFO female mineworker rubbing up against and trying to hold hands with her male colleagues when commuting to her worksite amounted to harassment and s-xual harassment and warranted BHP dismissing her.
