A worker who unsuccessfully sought to take long service leave after Bulla Dairy Foods rejected medical exemption evidence from a since-suspended doctor has failed to establish it unfairly sacked him for breaching a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The FWC has thrown out an unfair dismissal case brought by a law student sacked from a full-time job as a legal assistant for failing to get a COVID-19 jab, finding she did not complete the required minimum employment term after taking time off to sit exams.
In a significant ruling on dismissals deemed harsh by the FWC, a full bench has endorsed the "unorthodox" approach taken by a member who ordered the reinstatement of a forklift driver who breached an employer's "no mobile phones" policy.
An employer unfairly sacked a labourer for running over a pet galah, the FWC has held, rejecting claims that he breached a formal directive not to operate vehicles when Crackers was on the ground.
A large employer has failed to win costs against a law firm it accused of burying "their heads in the sand" over the integrity of a client whose claims of mistakenly altering the expiry date on a key qualification fell apart under scrutiny by the FWC.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of an AFP employee who refused to meet with its "trojan horse" organisational health team while resisting a return to the office.
The FWC has declined to extend time for an unvaccinated worker who claimed he lodged his claim late because of the theft of 45 one-kilogram silver bars from his home, while it has upheld a nursing home's sacking of a maintenance manager who failed to comply with a State Government inoculation mandate.
The FWC has distinguished between "regular" industrial protests and those likely to attract "public outrage" during pandemic restrictions in finding a crane company entitled to sack an operator who attended a violent anti-vax rally outside CFMMEU offices in Melbourne.
