A business that "outgrew" its informal HR processes got its fingers burnt when a young employee's welfare became endangered by its tolerance of the escalating misconduct of a worker who threatened to give him "the Ivan Milat treatment", the FWC has found.
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.
In a decision reinforcing the need for pandemic-affected employers to spread the burden fairly, the FWC has found that a multi-billion-dollar business should have reduced hours across a head office team instead of standing down one of its members for an indefinite period.
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.
The FWC has upheld Essential Energy's dismissal of a whistleblowing risk manager deemed unable to perform her job's inherent requirements after suffering PTSD and taking extended leave following a finding that she breached its code of conduct.
Procedural flaws in a worker's summary dismissal on Melbourne Cup day did not outweigh the seriousness of having invited the theft of a company vehicle by leaving the keys in the ignition, the FWC has found.
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.
The FWC has agreed to hear a senior public sector lawyer's claims he was denied pay rises after being "admonished" for wearing Zara brand shoes, despite a court finding his employer conducted two procedurally fair investigations before sacking him for misconduct.
