A fair work commissioner has extended time for a worker who drove 170km to hand-deliver his unfair dismissal claim, saying "unfortunate" is too gentle a word for delays that left the original languishing in the tribunal's shared mailbox at Hobart's Commonwealth Courts building.
In what stands as an object lesson in how not to handle performance reviews, the FWC has highlighted the role of "managerial cowardice" and a passive HR department while reinstating a senior academic who received an "exceeds expectations" score shortly before three colleagues formally complained about her conduct.
A worker has been allowed to proceed with an out-of-time unfair dismissal application after his employer failed to tell him he had been taken off the roster, "dangled" the prospect of future shifts in front of him for almost a year, and led him to believe he remained on the books.
The FWC has made tart observations about relying on no-win, no-fee lawyers and agents in refusing to extend time by seven months for a worker allegedly unfairly sacked for disclosing a medicinal cannabis prescription for pain relief.
The FWC has awarded more than $30,000 compensation to a "frazzled" truck driver sacked after admitting to smoking a joint a few days before returning a positive roadside test result.
A FWC member who ordered a meatworker's reinstatement wrongly discounted as hearsay evidence that he allegedly called his Pacific Islander colleagues "tree apes" and "black c-nts", a full bench has found.
The FWC has found that a major warehouse operator did not genuinely make a worker redundant, because it failed to discuss redeployment opportunities with her, including 18 jobs it had vacant at the time of her dismissal.
With many self-represented workers turning to artificial intelligence to prepare material to file in the FWC, a senior member has articulated concerns after navigating an apparently AI-generated claim containing "evolving" reasoning and a non-existent authority.
