A Victorian man who said his feelings had been hurt after being 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.
The worker who filed the case against Woolworths said he was told by a co-worker during a casual shift – in rude terms – to cover up his so-called “plumber’s crack” (or, as Colman described it, “the cleft of his bottom [which] was protruding from his trousers”).
“[He] was upset,” Colman said. “His feelings were hurt. He lodged an application alleging that he had been dismissed in breach of his workplace rights.”
However, Colman said Woolworths was not aware of any dismissal involving the man, and that he was never dismissed.
“[Woolworths] said that [he] continued to work shifts after lodging his claim and that he later stopped turning up for work,” he said. “This case had nothing to do with dismissal. It was evidently a speculative claim made in pursuit of a monetary settlement that would spare Woolworths the nuisance of defending it.”
Colman said the man ignored his direction to attend the telephone hearing for the case and noted that this was the individual’s fifth application in two years.
Cases such as this one are unfair, Colman pointed out because the claimant often has little to lose and because they use up the commission’s resources and waste time.
“This is unfair to respondents who have no case to answer,” he said.
“It is unfair to applicants with cases of substance waiting their turn to be heard. There is no effective disincentive for speculative claims, and so they come, in great numbers, compounding the commission’s burgeoning caseload.”
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
Millie Muroi is the economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was formerly an economics correspondent based in Canberra’s Press Gallery and the banking writer based in Sydney.Connect via X or email.
