An FWC full bench has made a rare security of costs order against a social worker it calculated has "little prospect" of being granted permission to appeal a rejected unfair dismissal claim.
The FWC has ordered a council to reinstate a beach inspector summarily sacked after fixing air-conditioning units that heated instead of cooled its new vehicles, taking it to task over a deeply flawed investigative process that belied the HR and legal expertise available to it.
In an important ruling on out-of-hours conduct, the FWC has found that an employer didn't need to receive a complaint before investigating then sacking a worker for sharing a p--nographic video via social media with friends who included 19 male and female work colleagues.
The FWC has upheld Bluescope Steel's sacking of a long-serving employee for his "appalling" timekeeping, but has found the company didn't have enough evidence to establish that he defecated in the workplace shower.
The FWC has highlighted the additional credibility provided when employers test for drugs in accordance with the Australian Standard, in upholding a multinational mining company's sacking of a marijuana smoker who breached its zero tolerance policy.
An FWC full bench has upbraided a tribunal member for suppressing the name of a sexual harassment complainant without proper consultation, but has upheld the sacking of a manager for the "hostile" and "derogatory" comments he directed at the trainee.
A senior FWC member has upheld the sacking of an underground mineworker who tested positive for THC and continued to have elevated levels of the drug in his system 22 days later, finding it the "only course of action open" to the employer.
An FWC member has declined to award costs to a prominent community legal centre's general manager despite finding she had been capriciously ousted by the management committee during a restructure and ordering her reinstatement.
The FWC has ruled on the out-of-hours conduct of a maintenance worker who claimed he was acting in self-defence when he ended up in a fight after a "horsing-around" passer-by took his cowboy hat, leading to his expulsion from the giant Wheatstone LNG project.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a TAFE manager for preparing a false and misleading briefing note in a bid to exculpate himself from responsibility after becoming "caught up" in a training scam, and has rejected his submissions that the employer made him a scapegoat.
