After a recent ‘drought’ of cases relating to social media in the workplace, there are two recent decisions in the Fair Work Commission that will be of interest to employers. Both recent cases involve dismissals that relate to the relevant Applicants making controversial contributions on Facebook, albeit in very different circumstances. The ISIS case Background […]
A frozen yoghurt franchisor (and some of its related entities) have been found liable for one of its franchisee’s underpayment of 4 overseas workers. The Fair Work Ombudsman media release detailed that “The four exploited workers were paid as little as $8 an hour while working at [the employer’s] outlet at the World Square Shopping […]
The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission has given leave to an employee to appeal a decision made by a single member of the Commission. In this case, the employee was employed from 22 October 2012 until her dismissal on 21 January 2016. Before she was dismissed, the employee alleged that her employer, and […]
The Fair Work Commission have again demonstrated the high threshold of conduct required to justify a termination for serious misconduct. In a recent case, an employer dismissed an employee for sharing a photo of a colleague’s employment contract with another employee. The employee (‘Applicant’) was ultimately dismissed without notice on the basis that his conduct […]
In this case, the Applicant was dismissed for bullying a colleague. In the incident that led to the termination, it was alleged that the Applicant, together with two other employees, upon leaving the workplace “…deliberately drove their cars in such a way to block [the victim] from being able to make a right hand turn […]
The FWC awarded an employee $28,000 in compensation after the employee was dismissed for refusing to take a drug test. The Employee was a pathology collector who, among other things took samples for drug testing purposes. In March 2016, the Employer received a phone call from a person who said the Employee had been using […]
This is an interesting and instructive decision of the Fair Work Commission. In this matter the Commission has upheld the summary dismissal of a HR Manager, otherwise highly regarded by the Employer, following an interesting series of events in the workplace. Background The HR Manager (‘Applicant’), who also held additional roles in the business, had […]
The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission has handed down an important decision relating to a labour hire company’s decision to terminate an employee who they were directed to remove from one of their client’s work sites. In this particular case, the Employee had been employed by the labour hire company (‘Company’) and had […]
The Federal Circuit Court has recently determined that an employee did not have an automatic entitlement to paid further compassionate leave, in circumstances where she refused to produce adequate evidence relating to her further leave request. In brief, the employee’s grandfather passed away, and the employee took compassionate leave on the day he died. Then […]
In this month’s Update we examine a recent case where an employee found to have committed an act of serious misconduct was still successful in his unfair dismissal application to the Fair Work Commission. Outline of Facts: The Applicant in this case was the manager of a well-known shoe store chain in a suburb of […]