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.
The FWC has awarded $15,000 compensation to a couple sacked within hours of each other for allegedly bullying the same manager by invoking a "summoning ritual" involving a pentagram and rubber ducks, and "mocking" her in a workplace chat group.
A senior FWC member has tripled the compensation sought by a worker sacked after her mother called the employer to convey in "abrupt and firm" tones that it should stop insisting on documentary evidence of a close relative's sudden death before paying bereavement leave.
