In a sign of the FWC's growing frustration with not just the number of applications flowing across its desk but the prevalence of applicants dropping off the map, a member has lamented a worker's "disconcerting" failure to engage with the tribunal and the concomitant waste of valuable "time and resources".
In a decision highlighting the need to confirm an employee's intentions before taking an ambiguous or emotionally charged exchange to be a resignation, the FWC will continue hearing a farm hand's unfair dismissal case after rejecting the employer's argument that he quit of his own volition.
A Fair Work Commission member has offered a "simpler" approach to determining whether workers' employment ended at the employer's initiative in cases involving alleged abandonment of employment.
The FWC has ordered BHP's labour hire arm to reinstate a worker sacked for saying a female colleague had a "giga-chin" and a "fat -rse", finding he had no idea what the first term meant and that the second accusation, when reframed as "phat -rse", gave it a different complexion.
A FWC full bench has ruled that Corrections Victoria dismissed a prison officer when it demoted and transferred him, clearing the way for him to proceed with his unfair dismissal claim.
The FWC has waved away as "self-inflicted" any financial and reputational harm caused to HR/IT and operations managers hastily sacked by a NDIS provider, pointing to the married couple's apparent purloining of the company's funds and numerous undeclared conflicts of interest as valid reasons for their dismissal.
The FWC has found that an employee of an Australian company who lives and works in New Zealand can bring an unfair dismissal claim, because the employer received his emailed contract acceptance in Victoria.
A cook has received almost $68,000 compensation after being sacked for supposedly refusing to attend mediation over her bullying claims – while in the midst of a Zoom meeting with a mediator.
A HR/IR manager who resigned briefly before taking up a casual position with the same employer has fallen short of the minimum period for pursuing an unfair dismissal case, despite assurances her continuity of employment would be preserved.
