In what a union has hailed as a victory for a commonsense approach to mobile phone use, a tribunal has reinstated a bus driver sacked for making two calls while parked with the doors open and the vehicle's dual braking system engaged.
A trucking company had a valid reason to sack a driver for speeding in his B-Double, but informing him by phone was "unnecessarily callous", the FWC has found.
An FWC member has lashed BHP for its "astounding" failure to properly apply its 'fair play' policies when it sacked a mineworker for telling two female colleagues a crude joke.
A tribunal member has rounded on an employer for its "reprehensible" response to being found to have unfairly dismissed a worker, describing as "wage theft" its tardy provision of backpay.
The FWC has upheld Star Casino's sacking of a food and beverage server who said he tapped a colleague's bottom in an act of comradery, accused three workmates of entrapping him and threatened to "raise hell" for his employer.
The FWC has held that a service station operator "set about" dismissing a worker after she filed a compensation claim, unfairly sacking her over her pink hair, s-xual objectification of a male customer and derogatory comments, despite having some valid reasons.
The FWC has taken a disability care provider to task over the process followed in dismissing one of its workers, finding she was "summonsed" by its HR manager "to participate in an ambush of her employment".
The FWC has awarded more than $2000 compensation to a roadside supervisor dismissed after he inserted a metal bar down the rear of a co-worker's pants and directed crew members to collect refundable cans and bottles so he could give the money to his daughter.
A tribunal member "counter-intuitively" refused to award compensation to an unfairly dismissed employee after failing to assess financial loss and wrongly asserting that she had admitted to competing priorities, an FWC full bench has found.
A home improvement company had a valid reason to sack a business manager who recklessly approved credit for a struggling customer, but the FWC has held that its process in dismissing him while on sick leave rendered it unfair.
