The FWC has slammed a "presumptuous" employer for taking up its time with a baseless late bid to have the tribunal throw out the unfair dismissal claim of a casual boxing trainer seeking compensation at the JobKeeper rate.
A church has failed to persuade the FWC that a pastor was not an employee when he was given an ultimatum to "repent" or be "released" from his role, the tribunal finding that his regular salary and leave payments for full-time hours indicated the existence of a legal relationship.
In a decision illustrating how much latitude the FWC is prepared to give unrepresented applicants, an employer has failed to have a former worker's unfair dismissal claim binned despite his "repeated failures" to attend conferences.
A senior FWC member has delivered a withering assessment of a large employer's HR practises in handling the resignation of a worker told by a trainer he wasn't wanted because he was "black".
An employer that cut a manager's wages by 15% due to COVID-19, but then restored her old rate when it made her redundant, has failed to establish that her pay exceeded the high-income threshold because to do otherwise would allow "manipulation" to deny her the chance to challenge her dismissal.
The "obvious impracticability" of sanitising a koala helped to justify a pandemic-affected wildlife sanctuary's decision to make redundant a worker responsible for co-ordinating photographs of visitors holding its main attraction, the FWC has found.
The FWC has allowed a worker to proceed with her unfair dismissal case after it found that counting the employer's director and company secretary lifted numbers above the 15-employee threshold that excludes small businesses.
A senior FWC member has declined to recuse himself from hearing an unfair dismissal case brought by a disbarred lawyer who accused him of "blatant bias" and having a "sweet little racket" bullying unrepresented workers.
An employer has won permission to have a legal representative defend an unfair dismissal case in the face of opposition from a sacked former employee who failed to disclose he is a highly-experienced lawyer disbarred after a conviction for s-xual assault.
An FWC presidential member has taken a swipe at a "misleading" state government website for wrongly convincing a public servant that the federal tribunal was the right forum in which to contest her dismissal.
