The FWC has upbraided construction company Hansen Yuncken for its "callous" and unfair sacking of a "naïve" trainee who nonetheless provided it with a valid reason by insisting on indefinite unpaid leave to avoid lengthy public transport commutes during COVID-19.
A former HSU NSW branch organiser is suing the union for more than $900,000 in an adverse action case in which she claims to have been sacked because of her age and bullying complaints against her manager.
Observing that "you can only 'lead a horse to water' so many times", the FWC has after nearly a year dismissed what it described as a former university employee's largely incompetent unlawful dismissal claim.
An HR advisor is accusing dairy cooperative Norco of summarily sacking her after more than 30 years because she supported colleagues during an investigation into the new chief executive's alleged misconduct.
The FWC has upheld an "inept" dismissal bereft of procedural fairness, finding it unlikely to have altered the result for a worker who swore, abused and tried to pick a fight with colleagues while on a warning.
The FWC has praised the CSIRO's approach to the dismissal of a scientist accused of threatening students he supervised, describing him as a "peddler of false allegations" who sought to characterise almost every interaction with a superior as bullying.
The FWC has in a book-length decision questioned a former Young Australian Of The Year's wisdom in pursuing an unfair dismissal case that shed light on "potential" fraud committed against the homeless people's charity she founded.
The FWC has awarded $8000 compensation to an airport employee who transferred sensitive files from his work computer onto a personal USB, finding the employer took a "kitchen sink" approach to allegations used to justify his summary dismissal.
In a warning about the myriad ways disciplinary investigations can go wrong, the FWC has rejected virtually every finding a large government agency relied on to sack an experienced rail employee who described his dismissal meeting as a "Pearl Harbour" moment.
