It wasn't just a payout - a referral to the Fair Work Ombudsman came with it
A discount retailer that ignored the Fair Work Commission from start to finish has been ordered to pay a sacked worker more than $14,000.
In a decision handed down on June 19, 2026, the Fair Work Commission found that Panda Mart Trading unfairly dismissed a retail worker two days after Christmas - then walked away from the case entirely. The decision described the company as an international discount retailer that "purports to be a 'Temu' retailer," running megastores in Victoria.
The worker started at the company's Cranbourne store in February 2025. She worked effectively full-time hours, eight to 10 hours a day, five days a week, and was paid in cash - $24 an hour at first, later $26. She received no payslips, no penalty rates, and none of the loadings or entitlements owed under the award and the National Employment Standards.
On December 27, 2025, she turned up for a rostered shift and learned from co-workers that she was gone. Two store managers confirmed it in the carpark. The reasons, she was told, were poor attendance and performance - claims she denied and that the commissioner found had no evidence behind them. She had never been warned about either.
Then the employer went quiet. Panda Mart never lodged the F3 employer response form, never attended a case management conference, and ignored months of emails and phone calls. Its only reply was a single email from a company representative that questioned the worker's identity and raised concerns about her visa status. The company filed nothing to support that position, the commissioner made no findings on it, and he separately found there was no misconduct by the worker.
With no one on the other side of the table, the commissioner decided the matter on the worker's uncontested evidence under section 600 of the Fair Work Act. Working through the section 387 criteria, he found no valid reason for the dismissal, no notice of any reason, and no chance for the worker to respond. The dismissal, he held, was harsh, unjust and unreasonable.
Reinstatement was off the table - the worker had moved interstate and the relationship was beyond repair - so the commissioner turned to compensation. Using the Sprigg formula, he estimated $27,040 in lost pay over six months, subtracted what she had since earned and a contingency amount, and arrived at $14,269.46 gross, plus $1,712.34 in superannuation, payable within 14 days.
He did not stop there. Pointing to the cash pay, the missing payslips, and the worker's evidence that the company still held her passport and visa records, he asked the Commission's General Manager to refer Panda Mart to the Fair Work Ombudsman. The commissioner said those matters suggested a "flagrant disregard of the laws of the Commonwealth and the rights of workers to perform work within borders."
The takeaway for HR is blunt: silence is a strategy that loses. An employer that engages, gives a reason, and runs a basic process can survive a hard case. One that ignores the Commission hands the other side an uncontested run - and risks turning a single dismissal into a regulator's file.
