The Fair Work Commission has ordered an employee to pay his employer more than $18,000 in costs after ‘doing a runner’ from his own unfair dismissal hearing when it emerged that he had manipulated a doctor’s report to hide a positive drug test. The employee was dismissed from his job as a truck driver after a routine workplace drug and alcohol test showed positive results for amphetamine and methamphetamine. The employee brought an unfair dismissal…
An employee has successfully argued on appeal that his employer had an obligation to act reasonably in relying upon a right to summarily terminate his employment. The NSW Court of Appeal upheld the bank executive’s wrongful termination claim although, the executive received only a small fraction of the $9m plus damages claimed. The NSWCA found that, despite the wrongful termination, the employer bank would likely have terminated for convenience, with notice, in any event and…
The Fair Work Commission has upheld an employee’s application for unfair dismissal following a positive blood alcohol test at work. The employee, a maintenance worker, underwent a pre-work blood alcohol test. His blood alcohol content first showed at 0.013%, and 0.006% some 30 minutes later. The employee was stood down for the day, and his employment was terminated summarily 4 days later for breach of the company’s zero-tolerance Drug and Alcohol Policy. Whilst the employee…
A recent unfair dismissal decision contains key lessons for employers when managing employee use (and abuse) of work-related devices. In this case the employer terminated the Applicant’s employment for failure to comply with a direction to repay a debt of $15,000 – being personal phone charges incurred on a work phone. The Facts The employer issued the Applicant with a work mobile phone. In late 2014, the employer detected that the Applicant’s use of the…