As a bit of background, this was a retail job that I had a few years ago. I had been (and still am) a reserve in the Australian army.
I worked at this retail company that has a National presence. Over the course of about 2 – 2.5 years of employment, the franchisee of the business would routinely deny military leave applications, for courses and potential deployments. Every time, the excuse was,
“It’s not a good time” or “we currently have other things going on that are more important”.
Even though I provided the correct notice papers that clearly stated it was illegal for them to deny military leave, the employer didn’t care, and still denied it. Saying that ‘the law didn’t apply to him’ because my absence would cause financial problems for the business.
My CO’s would then tell me that they wouldn’t press the issue and cause issues for me with my employer. And would just remove me from the courses and deployments. Which, as you can guess would just embolden my employer that he could get away with it.
On top of all this, this particular job was a primarily commission based retail job. So I would be paid the absolute minimum wage, and would have to make up the rest of my money through sales. Problem was, I was routinely tasked with other jobs, that took me off the floor and out back. Whether it be bringing in new deliveries, sorting stock or even just sweeping the floor. Because of this I was unable to make as much sales as the other salesman in the store. But the employer kept telling me that I wasn’t achieving sales targets and I didn’t pick up I would be fired.
When the Australian bushfires in late 2019 started, I gave my notice to say I was needed and that I had to go. And got the expected response. “No, we have stocktake coming, that’s more important”. And once again, my CO’s let it slide and I didn’t go.
Then, once covid-19 came, I was put in a deployment to enforce border restrictions as part of the ADF response. I knew that my employer would deny it, so I had enough, and gave my 2 weeks notice. Then on my second last day of work, my employer was taking the day off to go to the beach, and instructed me that I was to sweep the floors out back all day. I got a phone call from another person in my unit, saying that I was required to go and get some vaccinations that morning, in order to go.
Considering that all I was doing was sweeping the floor, my absence for maybe an hour wouldn’t be an issue. Especially since I was resigning and the next day was my last, so I really needed to get those jabs. I clocked out, and sent my employer a text that I had clocked out and would be back in an hour.
Once he read that and called me I was already on base about to get my jabs. He demanded that I leave and return to work immediately. I said no, that I would be back afterwards. Got got fed up and hung up.
Afterwards, when I got back to work about 15 minutes later, my employer was in the store waiting for me. I explained that the medic had given a note to say I was only to perform light duties for the rest of the day. He went off at me, saying that I was fired, that I wasn’t wanted at the company anymore and to get my things and leave. I did so, then I went back and told him I needed my dismissal in writing. As him firing me because of my reserve obligations was highly illegal.
However he must’ve wised up, because he the said that I wasn’t fired, he just didn’t have any light work for me for that day and the next.
Because of that, i couldn’t go through my CoC and report the dismissal as I had no proof I was fired because of my reserve obligations. I tried to go through the fair work ombudsman, however they said to me, that while it was a National retail chain, each store was franchised and therefore was classed as a small business. So therefore the rules were different and I had no protection from them either for the dismissal.