The Workplace Relations Commission rejected a temporary clerical officer’s disability discrimination complaint against a government department, finding that he had not established facts from which discrimination could be presumed. The decision was dated 9 April 2018.
The officer said the department considered dismissing him partly because he had taken two days of stress-related leave. The department said its HR managers did not know of a medical condition and that the disciplinary process concerned conduct. The adjudicator found the information available to the department did not put it on notice of a disability, and that the officer had not linked his absence to discriminatory treatment.
The officer also complained that the department’s disciplinary process did not follow fair procedures. The WRC found it had no jurisdiction to hear that complaint because his State employment excluded him from the statutory definition of a worker; the merits were not decided.