In what stands as a lesson in managing employees with deeply-held grievances, a senior tribunal member has commended a large employer's HR department for its patience in trying to accommodate a "very difficult" worker before his dismissal.
A managing director's attempt to "point-score" during hearings into the dismissal of an employee who feared a gun-owning co-worker has been decried by an FWC commissioner as among the "poorest displays" from a respondent she has encountered in five years on the Commission.
In a warning about the myriad ways disciplinary investigations can go wrong, the FWC has rejected virtually every finding a large government agency relied on to sack an experienced rail employee who described his dismissal meeting as a "Pearl Harbour" moment.
The ACCC has issued a warning notice against an IR business and its sole director accused of pocketing compensation payments made to unfair dismissal applicants.
An FWC senior member who considered a bus driver's submissions on procedural fairness to be "unduly pernickety" wrongly found he was properly notified and had a chance to respond, but a full bench has upheld his sacking.
After the FWC reinstated one of two truck driver TWU delegates involved in a punch-up, it has now upheld Toll's dismissal of the second driver because he lied during its investigation – a reason not relied on by the employer.
The FWC has dismissed an employer's application to reduce a redundancy payment to nil, finding redeployment options unacceptable because of excessive travel time and reduced income.
The FWC has declined to hear an NRL assistant coach's late claim that his club unfairly dismissed him during the season's temporary suspension due to COVID-19, but has conceded that he might reasonably feel "particularly aggrieved" about his selection for redundancy.
A SA youth worker sacked after he was deemed "psychologically unsuitable" has failed to overturn a finding that his employer had no option because of the job's inherent requirement that he pass the psychometric test.
