$17 sacking fair: Commission

A man sacked after 10 years in the same job for attempting to dishonestly claim a $17 benefit has had his claim for unfair dismissal rejected by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Chris Baes, an “operations agent” with logistics company FedEx, claimed a reimbursement of $99 for his kids’ swimming lessons under a company work/life balance program.

Supporting the claim was a receipt for $182 from the swimming school. After an investigation, however, Baes was forced to admit that the receipt had been altered by his wife and that its actual amount was $82 – $17 less than the amount claimed.

Although he had worked for the company for 10 years and had a good record, FedEx terminated his employment for dishonest conduct.

At the hearing, Baes said that he actually had other receipts to support the claim and had only allowed his wife to doctor the $82 receipt out of laziness. He also argued that the termination was harsh and unfair given the relatively small amount involved.

But Industrial Relations Commission senior deputy president Jonathon Hamberger rejected these arguments and upheld the fairness of the termination by FedEx, finding that the small amount involved was irrelevant in appraising Baes’s conduct.

“It may have been a short sighted act of laziness on Mr Baes’s part to submit the ‘doctored’ receipt for reimbursement. However it was not a mere case of ‘sloppiness’. It was a deliberate act of dishonesty designed to obtain a financial benefit. Such dishonesty strikes at the level of trust an employer should be able to expect from an employee,” Hamberger said.

Baes was represented by a legal officer of the Transport Workers Union, and FedEx by a partner with international law firm Baker & McKenzie.