The FWC has lashed a HR consultant's "astonishingly poor" advice as contributing to the unfair dismissal of a long-serving manager whose redundancy process descended into accusations of serious misconduct, in part because of a mistaken belief that he emailed malware to his former employer.
Sydney University will not have to reinstate a lecturer sacked five years ago for superimposing a swastika on an image of an Israeli flag, after a full Federal Court majority found he could not prove that his "incendiary" conduct fell under intellectual freedom protections.
The FWC has extended time for a worker with "significant" mental health issues beyond the "ordinary stress" associated with most sackings, despite finding that representative error might also have contributed to the delay in filing her unfair dismissal case.
The SDA has failed to win bargaining orders against a beauty retailer that froze it out of negotiations for a new deal, after a FWC member had just an hour to weigh the application before voting ended and it won resounding support.
The FWC has transferred workers from BHP's in-house labour hire arm to direct employment with the new owners of a former BHP Coal mine, finding it "consistent" with the intent of the Fair Work Act's new "same-job, same-pay" protections.
ASU officials will no longer have to be escorted to the bathroom when exercising entry rights at the ATO after the FWC found it an unreasonable request, while giving union delegates "time release" to accompany them would be "frankly quite ridiculous".
Overlooked evidence and orders beyond the Commission's powers have led to two offshore oil and gas industry companies overturning FWC rulings that reduced the amount docked from workers' pay after they engaged in partial work bans.
A supervisor's criticism of management in a social media group chat that "incit[ed] a negative and combative environment among the team", along with performance issues, provided a valid basis for dismissing her, the FWC has found.
The FWC has halved the redundancy payouts for two finance workers who stood in the way of their employer's attempt to find jobs with a competitor by declining its request for updated resumes.
