The Fair Work Commission has forced Visy to reinstate a pair of sacked union delegates and back pay them six months of wages.
According to a report in The Australian, FWC upheld the unfair dismissal claim by the two AMWU delegates, who were accused by Visy of organising overtime bans and sacked in 2017.
The bans were allegedly organised due to employee dissatisfaction with a new zero-tolerance drug and alcohol policy at Visy’s Dandenong plant; however, commissioner Michelle Bissett believed employees when they said that the decision to work overtime was their own, and not influenced by the sacked delegates.
“That each saw the working of overtime on a very regular basis as a positive in working with Visy does not support an inference that the (delegates) organised the employees not to perform overtime.
“To accept this proposition would require me to accept that each of the employees was not honest in their evidence before the commission and there is no basis for me to make such a finding,” she said.
Visy had opposed the delegates’ reinstatement, claiming a toxic breakdown of relationships and saying that restoring their jobs would interfere with site operations; however, Bissett ordered their reinstatement and that their continuity of service be maintained, as well as six months of back pay for each of them.
“The witnesses were credible working people who, beyond the policy, had no gripe with their employer at the time and appear to have none now. For these reasons I am not satisfied that, on the balance of probabilities, I can draw the conclusions by inference sought by Visy,” she said.
Each delegate had worked at Visy for 20 years prior to his sacking.
