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.
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 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.
A prison guard who nodded off during shifts has won his job back after a tribunal found proper account had not been taken of his previously undiagnosed sleep apnea and that his dismissal was affected by a "procedural muddle" featuring two decision-makers reaching different conclusions.
The FWC has ordered costs against a worker held to have called a colleague "Gumby", "Dumbo" and "Homer" while on a "connived power trip", finding he could have achieved his bid to clear his name by accepting a generous settlement offer.
The FWC has upheld a government-funded organisation's summary sacking of a support officer who claimed ownership of a program's intellectual property while planning with a team of consultants to take it outside.
The FSU and the Commonwealth Bank are set to square off next month over accusations the bank sacked a worker for discussing his pay less than a month after chief executive Matt Comyn told a parliamentary committee the CBA does not enforce salary secrecy clauses.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a Westpac manager who only learned of the reason for her summary dismissal after the tribunal issued confidentiality orders restricting its own ability to publish details of the case.