Blendine Shlaimon and Fair Deal Travel Centre Australia [2005] NSWIRComm 1050

Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales

CITATION: Blendine Shlaimon and Fair Deal Travel Centre Australia [2005] NSWIRComm 1050

APPLICANT Blendine Shlaimon PARTIES: RESPONDENT Fair Deal Travel Centre Australia

FILE NUMBER(S): 4433 of 2000

CORAM: Patterson C

CATCHWORDS: COMMISSIONER TO ADD

LEGISLATION CITED: Industrial Relations Act 1996

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 04/12/2005

DECISION: INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION OF NEW SOUTH WALES

CORAM: PATTERSON, C

26 April 2005

Matter No IRC 4433 of 2000

Blendine Shlaimon and Fair Deal Travel Centre Australia

Application by Blendine Shlaimon re unfair dismissal pursuant to section 84 of the Industrial Relations Act 1996

DECISION

[2000] NSWIRComm ####

1 This application for relief was filed by Ms Blendine Gorial Shlaimon (Al Bazy) following her termination of employment as a "travel consultant" by telephone advice from the respondent's principal, Mrs Lily Stepanovich, after less than five months' service. 2 On 23 July 2000 Ms Shlaimon had received a call from Mrs Stepanovich informing her not to "come to work tomorrow … I don't need you anymore … don't try to contact me … if you want something call my solicitor." 3 Several following attempts to contact Mrs Stepanovich at the office failed due, it seems, to her deliberate avoidance and it was not until the applicant called her employer's mobile phone that they spoke again. When the applicant asked what was "going on" and stated that she had a "right to know ..." she was told "you do not have any rights with me" and was, once again, loosely referred to the respondent's solicitor. 4 After making arrangements through another person Ms Shlaimon arranged to visit the travel agency and collect her personal effects whereupon she discovered her "personal papers" to be in disarray and that a "parcel" given her by a relative to pass on to another relative "had been opened." 5 "For the next two weeks" the applicant's frequent attempts to make contact with her employer through "friends or mutual acquaintances" continued to be unsuccessful. 6 According to material filed by the respondent, Mrs Stepanovich had counselled the applicant on a number of occasions in respect to her "sloppy work practices" and frequent failure to comply with standard procedures and licensing requirements concerning the safe-handling of deposit and bond moneys. 7 "Around late July" Mrs Stepanovich allegedly discovered "there were monies missing and not accounted for … I then began to find that Blendine was keeping money in her drawer" rather than lodging it within the office safe. 8 Having arranged an audit of the "business books" at around this time Mrs Stepanovich was advised by her accountant of a "$60,000 to $70,000" shortfall in the Trust Account. Considering this missing money to have been the product of "sloppy work practices" and/or misappropriation Mrs Stepanovich considered the applicant as being exclusively responsible and summarily terminated the applicant by phone as claimed. 9 However, it was not until after her application for relief was filed in this Commission that Mrs Stepanovich filed a complaint with ­Fairfield Police whose subsequent enquiries were not to be concluded for a very considerable time. 10 And, it was not until Ms Shlaimon's quest for relief was filed in this place that Mrs Stepanovich had reported the applicant's alleged dishonesty to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (the "Department"). 11 As will be seen from the Department's correspondence reproduced below this information, not yet reported to Police at the time (let alone investigated to conclusion), had the potential effect of causing a prima facie approval of Ms Shlaimon's application for Australian citizenship to be placed at serious risk: