A FWC presidential member has suggested policymakers give greater consideration to recognising the "industrial qualifications" of migrant workers after ruling an employer unfairly dismissed a factory hand when it made him redundant without consultation due to his unsuccessful attempts to obtain an Australian forklift licence.
The FWC has found a long-serving BHP Coal worker who had "clearly not adjusted to the modern workplace" s-xually-harassed two colleagues, but a rushed investigative process and lack of a proper opportunity to respond rendered his dismissal unfair.
A shareholding employee sacked by his "toxic" family business for raising his voice at a salesperson has won compensation but missed out on reinstatement due in part to his court bid to wind up the company.
The FWC has upheld a law firm's dismissal of a solicitor accused of "gaming" its timekeeping system to boost a junior colleague's billable hours and telling an opposing practitioner his client was a "c-nt".
The FWC has ordered the Reserve Bank to pay compensation after its "unnecessarily abrupt" sacking of a long-serving manager while he took leave, finding it led him to believe at the mid-point of a performance management process that he remained "on track" to retain his job.
In a case that weighs up employer rights when conducting investigations under commonly-used agreement provisions, a FWC full bench has rejected a worker's request for an investigation report that details his alleged misconduct, but has suggested the employer re-open its probe because it denied him natural justice.
The FWC has reinstated a long-serving worker accused of violent threats to a colleague, finding the employer's circumstantial evidence fell short and did not establish that the incident occurred.
A major employer has for the second time in a year been ordered to reinstate a worker after the FWC again identified fatal flaws in its investigation processes.
An organisation that supports members of the Stolen Generation did not have a reasonable basis for dismissing a worker for alleged "cultural insensitivity", but other conduct would have justified her sacking if it followed a proper process, the FWC has ruled.
A worker's "unfortunate" comment to the FWC that "it is nearly impossible to injure someone when driving a forklift at 8km/h", demonstrating his "unsatisfactory understanding of workplace safety", has clinched a ruling that upheld his sacking, after he admitted to smoking marijuana the night before a collision.
