An academic challenging his sacking for breaching his university's code of conduct when he denounced its climate change research will tell the High Court intellectual freedom provisions give him an overriding right to criticise his employer.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a 52-year-old Victorian secondary teacher who "crossed the line" when he hugged and touched boys, despite also finding his employer did not follow the disciplinary procedures set out in its enterprise agreement.
In a decision highlighting both the perils of "naïve" social media use and the incongruities of the JobKeeper program, the FWC has declined to award compensation to a teenage casual swim instructor unfairly sacked for recommending a rival business on a community Facebook page.
An employer has convinced the FWC that a mineworker found to have been unfairly sacked over a safety failure should not be reinstated because it had lost trust and confidence in him.
The FWC has found the redundancy of a FIFO labour hire coal mineworker affected by COVID-19 travel restrictions not genuine, holding that Workpac failed to meet its consult obligations after BHP said it no longer needed him.
In a significant decision acknowledging the "scarce" guidance on compulsory workplace COVID-19 vaccinations, the FWC has upheld a big employer's dismissal of a childcare worker for refusing to take a free flu shot.
The FWC has criticised a company's "entirely unjust" process in sacking a long-serving mushroom picker for misplacing a knife, while noting her prior unblemished disciplinary record contrasted strangely with a swathe of warnings following a workplace injury.
The FWC has cautioned against parties assuming they have a common understanding of notions like "usual terms" and "mutual release" in settlement agreements, after an accountant decided to proceed with her unfair dismissal case following apparently successful conciliation.
The FWC has ordered the reinstatement of a bank manager who transferred $37,500 to a fraudster's account in the frenzied early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
