A Victorian man who said his feelings were hurt when he was told to cover up his “plumber’s crack” has been berated by the Fair Work Commission for filing an unfair-dismissal case that wasted the workplace arbiter’s time.
In a decision published last week, Fair Work Commission deputy president Alan Colman said he threw out a case filed by a Woolworths employee seeking compensation from the supermarket giant for a dismissal that never occurred.
“Anyone wanting insight into the phenomenon of unmeritorious claims in the Fair Work Commission may wish to consider [this case],” Colman said, noting such cases compounded the commission’s “burgeoning workload”.
Earlier this year, Fair Work Commission president Justice Adam Hatcher said he expected close to 55,000 cases to come across the arbiter’s table this financial year, up 70 per cent in the space of three years. “There is no sign of this growth trend plateauing out, and we have no idea what the ‘new normal’ will be,” he said at the time, blaming applicants’ use of AI tools.
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