In a reminder to employers to double-check before assuming a worker has abandoned their employment, a business must pay $7000 to an ex-employee after it withdrew his visa sponsorship over an unexplained three-day absence that turned out to be GP-recommended stress leave.
There is "no place for bawdy offensive alpha-male behaviour in the workplace", the FWC has found, in upholding the dismissal of a male worker for asking a female colleague for a kiss and telling another co-worker that he wanted to "f-ck" his sister.
The FWC has sent employers a clear reminder of the conditions and processes required to justify summary dismissal, with its reinstatement of a contractor's employee who admitted to vomiting at a major client's after-hours function but denied propositioning one of its managers.
The FWC has castigated an HR department for casting aside its "proper role" when it pursued incorrect allegations and facilitated the unfair dismissal by ambush of a manager it considered an "ongoing management problem".
In a rare case, two former operators of a Canberra massage parlour potentially face up to a year in jail for allegedly providing false or misleading evidence to the FWC.
A company has been forced to reinstate a long-serving senior executive it sacked more than three years ago following his stoush with an HR manager, while also facing a bill of more than $1 million in back pay, long service leave, penalties and compensation.
The NSW Supreme Court has refused to make an interim order to stop a major NSW local government authority from sacking its chief executive on the basis of a review of the "authenticity" of his claimed work experience, qualifications and job references.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a bus driver who said he left schoolchildren stranded at a bus stop and told passengers to walk because he was too stressed to keep working.
A senior FWC member has held that an abusive "alt-right" employer unfairly sacked an apprentice for refusing to assist his pursuit of revenge against a former employee, describing the company managing director as having the most deplorable attitude to HR management she had ever encountered.
An employer who sought to "retrofit" a requirement for workers to have a clean police record should have obtained external HR advice to avoid unfairly sacking a storeworker over his criminal past, the FWC has found.
