In refusing an extension of time application, the FWC has found incorrect advice that a "no-win/no-fee" law firm allegedly gave a worker about the cut-off date for lodging her unfair dismissal application would not constitute representational error as it declined her business.
A prison officer effectively sacked twice after pleading guilty to assaulting three inmates has again won his job back, an appeal court finding that the IR commissioner who originally reinstated him had correctly focused on what is fair and just, rather than "the reputation of the government".
The NSW Supreme Court has rejected an employer's interlocutory bid to remove material it claims is confidential from the file for a general protections case in the FWC.
The FWC has extended time for a BHP joint venture mineworker to lodge a general protections claim challenging his sacking over a failed drug test, but has agreed there is "great weight" to the employer's view that it is essentially an unfair dismissal application in disguise.
In a broad warning to employees mixing social media and work, the FWC has found that a BHP Billiton mineworker was justifiably sacked despite upon realising his error quickly deleting two Facebook posts mistakenly asserting shifts were cancelled.
The Flight Attendants Association has successfully claimed a small business exemption from a manager's unfair dismissal claim on the basis elected officials are not employees, the FWC finding that in helping draft a ROC complaint she defied reasonable directions not to discuss the secretary.
The FWC has ordered a lawyer to pay half the costs awarded to an unfairly dismissed sales manager, finding he could have saved time and money by revealing on the morning of the hearing that his client would not press jurisdictional objections.
A multinational company bungled what could otherwise have been a fairly straightforward dismissal of a detention officer who slept on the job, the FWC finding that "blindsiding" her with photographic evidence at the second of two meetings denied the otherwise exemplary employee procedural fairness.
The FWO is seeking to fine the CFMMEU's MUA division more than $3.5 million for unlawful industrial action against Hutchison Ports, using a novel argument that historic contraventions of the same Fair Work Act provision denies the union the benefit of the legislation's single course of conduct mechanism.