The FWC has reinstated a Sydney Trains worker who used cocaine while on leave, after lambasting the employer for not making it clear that it tests for use rather than impairment and for failing to take on board earlier criticism of its drug and alcohol policy.
The FWC has levelled indemnity costs against an employer that claimed to be acting on FWO advice when it objected to a former employee's adverse action case on the basis that her post-ANZAC Day filing pushed it beyond the statutory deadline.
The FWC has found an IR consultant's failure to check his emails after business hours on a Friday or the following Monday wholly to blame for a day-late unfair dismissal claim, extending time for his client to argue it unfairly retrenched her after she converted to casual employment.
Qube Ports must reinstate a stevedore who pranged a client's $70,000 Mercedes after an operations manager mistook her explanations as an attempt to excuse her behaviour or shift the blame.
An intellectual property firm fumbled an employee's summary dismissal when it switched from highlighting his deficient performance and conduct to "dishonesty" over time spent browsing the internet "for items of personal interest", the FWC has found.
In a full bench decision exploring what constitutes work-related conduct, essential services provider Ventia has failed to knock out the reinstatement of a firefighter who shared an Only Fans video and a meme showing three naked women in a "sickos" Facebook group of current and former colleagues.
A victim of "appalling" domestic violence did not need to provide independent medical advice to explain why she filed an unfair dismissal application almost four months late, the FWC has found.
The FWC has castigated an employer for its "unconscionable" and "intimidatory" written notice suggesting that a casual duty manager committed theft and fraud when she failed to pay for a drink or offer an explanation for missing stock, while it has also lambasted its representative, Clubs NSW, for its "unprofessional" conduct in characterising her conduct as criminal.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a kitchen hand who turned up intoxicated in his own time to prepare for his next shift, but has berated the employer over its "failure to exercise basic decency" when leaving him to find his own way home.
The 12-day gap between a concreter's two-day "trial" and starting full-time work did not count as "continuous" employment, leaving him just shy of the statutory minimum necessary to challenge his dismissal, the FWC has found.
