By Mike Toten Freelance Writer

A mineworker whose error at work resulted in gold being disposed of as waste has been awarded compensation for unfair dismissal. The Fair Work Commission (FWC) found that the error was caused by a combination of her inexperience, inadequate training and inadequate instructions from more senior employees, who were not also dismissed for the consequences.

 

Facts of case

The employer claimed that the employee, who had recently had a career change from hairdressing to become a mining pit technician, had failed to check a digging site against a map she was given. This resulted in 54 ounces of gold being excavated and dumped as waste instead of processed, at a cost of about $200,000 to the business.

Evidence was that her more experienced co-workers gave her a map they had incorrectly marked up, and which was obsolete, but the employer alleged that she failed to exercise due diligence by not inspecting the work area first. The employer dismissed her but took less severe action against the co-workers.

The employee had no reason to suspect that her map was incorrect. She had tried to verify its accuracy with a co-worker, who told her it was correct. GPS was not available at the time to allow for cross-referencing at the site. The FWC described the employee as “the last line in a succession of failures” but the employer allocated full blame to her and dismissed her.

The employee had only 15 months’ experience in the mining industry and was the least-experienced employee on-site.

The employer claimed it had previously raised other performance issues with the employee and given her a warning, but the FWC said that it had done so belatedly, not given her any opportunity to respond to the concerns, and not indicated that her job was in jeopardy. It had also awarded her a pay rise. The FWC added that if she had been placed on a performance management program instead, it was likely that her performance would have improved.

 

Decision

The employee was awarded four months’ pay as compensation for unfair dismissal. The FWC set that limit after saying that the nature of the mining employment market meant that she should have been able to quickly find another job.

 

What this means for employers

This was a case of an employer finding a scapegoat to blame for a significant business income loss. In fact there were several systemic failures within the business and other employees who had contributed to the loss were not sanctioned as severely. The employer should have addressed those issues instead, or as well.

The decision also shows that the FWC can take an employee’s inexperience and/or lack of training or supervision into account when deciding whether a dismissal has been unfair.

Finally, if you are drawing an employee’s attention to his/her alleged performance deficiencies, you need to identify specific issues and provide examples, not just a general “you need to improve” type of conversation.

 

Read the judgment

Ms Jamie-Lee Corless-Crane v Aurenne Management Services Pty Ltd [2025] FWC 986 (2 July 2025)