The FWC has overruled an employer's resistance to a working parent's request to work an extra day a fortnight at home to care for his toddler daughter until she reaches two years of age, while rejecting its claims that it would set a precedent for the remainder of its workforce.
A Federal Court judge has slammed a stockbroker founder's "outrageous" behaviour in the course of dismissing a damages claim against two former employees who enticed clients to a rival, while separately finding that he unlawfully deducted almost $50,000 from one advisor's pay to cover travel and entertaining costs.
In a warning for employers about properly educating workers on workplace policies, the FWC has reinstated an employee dismissed for breaching drug and alcohol rules, because the major company failed to ensure its workforce understood a key change.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a manager on the Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest-owned Lizard Island who emailed a former colleague's employment contract to a friend with HR experience in an effort to build an underpayment case.
Working without a valid visa defeated a Costco employee's unfair dismissal claim, despite the necessary permit arriving within days of his sacking, the FWC has found.
An employer has clawed back just a fraction of costs it incurred in defending a "weak" and unreasonable unfair dismissal case after the FWC questioned why it needed lawyers to face off against a self-represented trainee nurse who "was not a formidable opponent".
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a Qube worker despite finding she was treated less favourably than two colleagues over a safety incident causing 20 train wagons to roll away, but it has suggested the employer "revisit" potentially disciplining the exonerated pair.
In a decision emphasising the importance of independent medical examinations, the FWC has found it was unfair to dismiss a cold storage worker over an inability to endure sub-zero temperatures without first heeding his doctor's advice to trial a reduced workload.
The High Court will next month begin hearing mining giant Peabody's challenge to a full Federal Court finding that it did not genuinely make workers redundant when it failed to consider whether it could redeploy workers to jobs performed by contractors.
