A large employer's failure to tell an employee what claims were being investigated before conducting a recorded interview was among a number of flaws identified by the FWC in a procedurally "infected" dismissal.
In refusing an extension of time application, the FWC has found incorrect advice that a "no-win/no-fee" law firm allegedly gave a worker about the cut-off date for lodging her unfair dismissal application would not constitute representational error as it declined her business.
A prison officer effectively sacked twice after pleading guilty to assaulting three inmates has again won his job back, an appeal court finding that the IR commissioner who originally reinstated him had correctly focused on what is fair and just, rather than "the reputation of the government".
In a rare case of an FWC member standing themselves down, a commissioner has found that comments she made about the "vexatious" applicants in a discontinued anti-bullying case could lead observers to question her impartiality when considering a counter anti-bullying application by the original respondent.
The CPSU says it will recommend Bureau of Meteorology workers reject a new agreement offer that relegates delegates' access rights to a side deal and makes them subject to management approval, vowing in the meantime to keep inserting campaign messages into the bureau's forecasts.
In a broad warning to employees mixing social media and work, the FWC has found that a BHP Billiton mineworker was justifiably sacked despite upon realising his error quickly deleting two Facebook posts mistakenly asserting shifts were cancelled.
A February FWC full bench finding that a worker was wrongly denied an extension of time to file on the basis he needed a credible explanation for the entire length of the delay has prompted a bench to overturn another decision refusing more time.
The FWC has ordered a lawyer to pay half the costs awarded to an unfairly dismissed sales manager, finding he could have saved time and money by revealing on the morning of the hearing that his client would not press jurisdictional objections.
A multinational company bungled what could otherwise have been a fairly straightforward dismissal of a detention officer who slept on the job, the FWC finding that "blindsiding" her with photographic evidence at the second of two meetings denied the otherwise exemplary employee procedural fairness.