The Fair Work Commission has ruled that Dorevitch Pathology, a leading provider of workplace drug tests, unfairly sacked one of its employees earlier this year, when it dismissed her for refusing to take a drug test.
The dismissal occurred after drug allegations were made to her employer by a neighbour with whom she was in a dispute.
The employee who had during her employment previously participated in the drug testing of others, was called to her employer’s head office and asked to provide a urine sample for a drug test following the allegation.
Instead of agreeing to provide the same, she left the office in an agitated state, attended a doctor and then called in sick. She was dismissed a fortnight later for serious misconduct arising from her failure to follow a reasonable direction.
The sacked worker told the Commission that she refused the drug test because she did not want her manager taking the urine sample and had concerns about her colleagues knowing she was to be tested. She argued that the proposed method of taking the test breached her employer’s drug testing policy as well as standard industry practice.
The Fair Work Commission found the dismissal to be unfair. In reaching its decision, Commissioner Michelle Bissett found there was no valid reason for the worker’s sacking due to a lack of procedural fairness and uncertainty as to the reason for the dismissal.
During the hearing, it emerged that the Dorevitch CEO who made the decision to dismiss, had mistakenly believed that the employee had declined to participate in the drugs test during a second meeting (rather than the first). The Commission were also told that the HR officer with the conduct of the process was aware that the employee was involved in the dispute with the neighbour who made the drug allegations but had not consider this to be relevant.
Commissioner Bissett ordered Dorevitch to pay the worker $27,900 in compensation, reducing the compensation by 10 per cent to reflect the worker’s ‘unusual behaviour which contributed to her losing her job.