The meeting he recorded became the key evidence in his forced-resignation claim
A chef who quit during a pay dispute, then argued he was forced out, did not persuade the Fair Work Commission he was dismissed.
In a decision dated July 28, 2026, the Commission dealt with a single question: had the worker resigned voluntarily, or had his employer left him no real choice but to go? The answer shaped everything that followed.
The worker, a chef at a Melbourne early learning centre, raised concerns about his pay two days before he quit. In an email to his manager, he said he had been underpaid one hour across two pay periods, that his annual leave balance appeared wrong, that he had not been paid overtime under the applicable award, and that his superannuation and sick leave looked incorrectly calculated.
He asked for a full and urgent review and gave the employer seven days to correct any errors. If the issues were not resolved, he said, he would contact the Fair Work Ombudsman. He added that he had been offered another job paying $40 per hour, wanted a pay increase "effective immediately," and asked for a response by 5pm the following day. If none came, he said he would "make [his] employment decision accordingly."
The employer, Paisley Park Early Learning Centre, did not agree to the pay increase by the deadline. Instead, it invited him to a meeting with his supervisor, the chief executive and the HR manager to better understand his concerns. He asked to bring a support person. The employer declined, on the basis that it was not a disciplinary meeting. He attended, and told those present at the outset that he was recording the meeting because his request had been refused. The employer did not object.
After the meeting, the chef sent a resignation email, thanking the centre and giving notice. He later lodged a general protections application under section 365 of the Fair Work Act, arguing that he had been forced to resign because of pressure and intimidation by his employer.
The employer objected, saying he had resigned of his own accord and there was no dismissal for the Commission to consider. Because the application was filed before recent changes to the Act took effect, the Commission had to decide that jurisdictional question before it could look at the general protections claim itself.
It found the worker had not been forced to resign. Reviewing the audio recording, which neither side disputed, the Commission said it showed no evidence that the chef had been pressured, intimidated or treated unreasonably. The meeting had ended with the employer offering to consider his request and respond within a week, and confirming that the errors in his pay and entitlements would be corrected.
The Commission accepted that the chef felt some apprehension about meeting senior management without a support person, and said that apprehension may have been justified from his perspective. But the test, it explained, is objective: the question was whether the employer's conduct left him no effective choice but to resign. It found he had other options - he could have waited for the employer's response, or notified a dispute to the Commission - and that the words of his resignation were clear and unambiguous.
The Commission added a general observation that the employer "may benefit from reflecting on the wisdom of denying requests for a support person to attend meetings in future," while noting this was not relevant to the question it had to decide.
Having found there was no dismissal, the Commission did not go on to consider whether any general protections had been breached. The application was dismissed.
For HR teams, the decision is a reminder of how the Commission approaches resignations. Clear, unambiguous words of resignation will usually be treated as an effective resignation. To turn a resignation into a dismissal, an employee generally has to show that the employer's conduct left them no real choice but to go - judged objectively, rather than by how the employee felt at the time. The decision also shows that meeting process still matters: while refusing a support-person request outside a disciplinary setting did not change the outcome here, the Commission was willing to comment on it.
