This is an unfair dismissal case of an Early Childhood Teacher heard by the Fair Work Commission. The educator was dismissed following an anonymous allegation related to her forcibly removing a child who was engaging in rough play to an exclusion spot. After asssessing the evidence, the Commission assessed the educators' dismissal as ‘harsh, unjust and unreasonable’, within the meaning of the Fair Work Act 2009 and awarded the educator $11,860 compensation. The Commission observed:
On my reading of the Regulatory mandate [National Law], Mr Stapleton [owner of the centre] was only required to notify of the incident within 24 hours. He went further by advising of the applicant’s suspension and of an investigation having been commenced. Far worse, he rushed to judgement, without affording the applicant natural justice. There was no legal, ethical or logical reason to do so. He could have, for example, kept the applicant on suspension, accepted her reasonable request for 24 hours’ notice of a directed meeting and provide her with the details of the complaint by email. These are the usual and orthodox steps taken in employment situations such as this. It is true, as Mr Stapleton put, that there is nothing in the Regulations requiring 24 hours’ notice to be given to a person about whom a complaint has been made. However, Mr Stapleton confuses his separate obligations under s 387(c) of the Act, to afford the applicant a (reasonable) opportunity to respond to the allegations. The notice given was not reasonable, and even less so given that she was not provided with the actual details of the allegations in writing (or at all).(para 107).
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