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 […]
A crane hire company has been ordered to pay $25,500 in penalties after it was found to have taken adverse action against a union delegate who raised complaints about his pay. The employee claimed that he and his colleagues, who were covered by the Company’s enterprise agreement, were entitled to penalty rates in addition to […]
An employer has failed in defending an unfair dismissal claim, with the consistency of its disciplinary action, for this employee as against others, called into question. In late 2015, a group of employees took industrial action against the employer in relation to enterprise agreement negotiations. The Applicant employee in this case left a voicemail message […]
This month we are looking at two of the more interesting issues to arise out of union ‘interventions’ in workplaces. Right of entry – does it extend to before and after work? In a recent case, the Fair Work Commission was asked to consider whether the right of entry laws extended to holding discussions during […]