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FWC rejects termination was by "mutual agreement"

The Fair Work Commission has rejected that a supervisor's employment ended by mutual agreement after a heated argument, accepting he was dismissed without a valid reason.

It was convenient for a manager to "latch on" to the employee's query about redundancy and use this to justify his characterisation of the dismissal as a mutual termination, Deputy President Judith Wright found.

The employee told the Commission that in the lead-up to his termination, his manager told him to leave a job halfway through and attend a different one. When he objected, the manager told him not to argue or question directions. After the employee said he'd comply if the instruction was put in writing, his manager did this, and he obeyed.

The following Monday the manager called him to a meeting and told him the employer didn't have a supervisor role for him, but he could assist the logistics manager. Asked whether it was a redundancy situation, the logistics manager said it wasn't, and the employee said, "I guess I'll have to take it since I don't have a choice"...

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