A senior FWC member has highlighted continuing difficulties faced by unrepresented applicants in distinguishing between the unfair dismissal and general protections jurisdictions, allowing a casual worker's claim to proceed despite him filing it a week late.
The FWC has spelt out the perils of supervisors expressing feelings for subordinates in a case where an engineer claimed she was unfairly dismissed after rejecting advances from a colleague who wanted to "get into her pants".
An employer has fended off an unfair dismissal claim by establishing that he did not sack a receptionist in a series of heated exchanges, but that she left based on her perception that he did.
Labour hire company Spinifex Recruiting has again come under fire for its reliance on a "misnamed" temporary employment agreement, with an FWC full bench rejecting its argument that it did not dismiss a casual worker because its client merely exercised its discretion to terminate her assignment.
The FWC has held that a supervisor's demotion to a job "on the tools" with a 9% pay cut was in fact a dismissal, rejecting employer submissions that it was allowed under his contract or via a "notorious" unwritten term.
Class action law firm Adero says it believes labour supplier One Key Workforce wound up owing more than 2000 mineworkers on casual contracts far more than the $38 million sum estimated by administrators, as it prepares to file a claim holding its parent company liable as their "true employer".
In an important interlocutory ruling, the Federal Court has today restrained mining giant BHP Coal from stopping a reinstated labour hire mineworker returning to the job at its Bowen Basin coal mine.
A tribunal member has strongly rebuked a legal firm for its "unprofessional" behaviour in missing a deadline to file material, lamenting that unlike golf tee times, FWC directions cannot be changed "at a whim".
Toll's failure to specify that it would not recognise a worker's prior service with a labour hire company has left it open to his unfair dismissal claim, with the FWC finding he met the minimum employment period as the transfer of his work established a connection between his new and old employer.
A large employer that argued that it needed an external lawyer because it recently made its HR director redundant has been permitted legal representation in an unfair dismissal case that the FWC found will involve complex jurisdictional argument.
