The FWC has over the objections of a self-represented applicant granted ANZ legal representation in an unfair dismissal case, in part because of the former employee's "rudimentary" understanding as to how her case will proceed.
The FWC will hear closing submissions on February 4 in an unfair dismissal case it adjourned until a teenage witness turned 18 and completed his final year exams.
The FWC has upheld an "inept" dismissal bereft of procedural fairness, finding it unlikely to have altered the result for a worker who swore, abused and tried to pick a fight with colleagues while on a warning.
An FWC full bench has clarified the preconditions for employers being granted legal representation, rejecting a presidential member's opinion that jurisdictional questions are inherently complex and dismissing "bare assertions" about an HR team's incapacity to contest a case.
In a case likely to be closely watched by employers considering mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, the FWC will probe whether Ozcare unfairly sacked a long serving care assistant who refused a compulsory flu shot on allergy grounds, while the Commission has also weighed-in on the contentious issue of compulsory jabs for Santas.
The Registered Organisations Commission is proceeding with its controversial investigation into past donations by the AWU, after the union allowed the deadline to pass to appeal to the High Court.
The FWC has praised the CSIRO's approach to the dismissal of a scientist accused of threatening students he supervised, describing him as a "peddler of false allegations" who sought to characterise almost every interaction with a superior as bullying.
The FWC has in a book-length decision questioned a former Young Australian Of The Year's wisdom in pursuing an unfair dismissal case that shed light on "potential" fraud committed against the homeless people's charity she founded.
The FWC has found employers are not obliged to keep workers on the payroll because of JobKeeper's availability, but has awarded a manager compensation for unfair dismissal that included 24 weeks of the job subsidy, because retaining him would have been "entirely consistent" with the scheme's objectives.
The FWC has awarded $8000 compensation to an airport employee who transferred sensitive files from his work computer onto a personal USB, finding the employer took a "kitchen sink" approach to allegations used to justify his summary dismissal.
