The FWC will allow multinational cereal giant Sanitarium to lawyer-up to defend two unfair dismissal claims, noting it is "stressful enough" for an HR manager to be a witness without also representing the company, while its membership of an employer group is irrelevant.
A barrage of "thuggish" texts sent by the partner of a worker alleging harassment and bullying did not justify her dismissal, the FWC has found, describing the employer's attempt to vacuum-seal its investigation of her claims as both unreasonable and unrealistic.
The high-profile chief executive of a Hancock Prospecting subsidiary has denied intimidating a former manager over a missed deadline, claiming instead that she called fellow team members "f--kers" as they clashed about approaches to finalising the business-critical report.
The HSU has struck back at a former organiser's age discrimination claim, saying she inappropriately made a secret recording and revealed at a divisional council meeting that she'd call "rape rape rape" if ever left alone with any manager who bullied or intimidated her.
A worker who suffered 11 seizures the day after his sacking has won permission to pursue an unfair dismissal claim lodged five months' late, despite his employer arguing that the "trail is now very cold".
A judge has taken an unsparing swipe at "economically rationalist management policy" in considering an eminent CSIRO scientist's challenge to his redundancy, bemoaning a selection process based on candidates' capacity for "external revenue generation".
A casual sales assistant who secretly recorded disciplinary meetings leading up to her dismissal has on her fifth turn before the FWC been awarded $4500 compensation.
A mining company must reinstate a summarily sacked coal mine worker and reimburse six months' lost income after its hasty and "inadequate" HR disciplinary process "effectively turned a very strong case with a valid reason to one with little or no procedural fairness".
The FWC will include a "call to action" in letters to employers hit with unfair dismissal claims in a bid to improve response times, after last year subjecting respondents to a randomised control trial that garnered strong results for the approach.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a student visa holder who punched a co-worker in the face after accusing him of saying "a lot of bad things" about a colleague she claimed was regularly being sexually assaulted by local Japanese gangsters.
