Union official Nick Belan gets no joy from court in fighting ‘unfair’ sacking

Sacked NUW organiser Nick Belan has lost another bid to prevent his admissions to a royal commission being used against him.

Nick Belan has again been unsuccessful in a long campaign over his dismissal from the National Union of Workers.

Sacked National Union of Workers organiser Nick Belan has lost another bid to prevent his admissions to the trade union royal commission being used against him in unfair dismissal proceedings.

The NUW sacked Mr Belan in 2016 for serious misconduct over the misuse of a union-­issued credit card. It relied on his commission evidence that he used the card to make ­personal purchases that were not reimbursed.

In 2017, the Fair Work Commission rejected his unfair dismissal claim, relying on his commission evidence to find the union had a valid reason to sack him. A Fair Work full bench subsequently dismissed his appeal of the commission decision.

Mr Belan sought a judicial ­review of the commission decisions in the Federal Court, alleging the transcript of his evidence was rendered inadmissable by the Royal Commission Act.

He claimed the NUW’s use of the transcript in the commission proceedings contravened the act by causing disadvantage to him. But a full Federal Court dismissed the application, in a judgment published on December 21 last year.

“Mr Belan has not shown that the union victimised, or intended to victimise, him, either because he gave evidence before the royal commission or because of its use of the content of that evidence,’’ the full court said.

“Rather, the union enforced its private contractual right to terminate Mr Belan’s employment for serious misconduct, and then disputed Mr Belan’s ­entitlement to a remedy for ­unfair dismissal before the FWC on the basis that there was a valid reason for his dismissal, namely his admissions of misconduct in his evidence as an employee of the union.”

It said there was no evidence before the court to conclude the union’s intention was to victimise Mr Belan. “Any disadvantage suffered by Mr Belan resulted from the pre-existing fact of his serious misconduct and his ­admission of it, and not from any act or intention on the union’s part to victimise Mr Belan referrable to the evidence he gave,’’ the full court said.

Transaction records tendered to the royal commission show $629 in food and beverage from Hooters restaurant in Sydney’s Penrith was charged to the union credit card of Mr Belan.

Questioned whether he had charged the entertainment to his work credit card, Mr Belan told the commission: “Yes, that could have been me, yes.”

His brother, Derrick Belan, the former NUW NSW branch secretary, was sentenced last year to four years’ jail for spending more than $650,000 of his members’ money on himself in a “matrix of fraud”.

He showed no remorse for using members’ funds to buy cars, a motorbike, holidays, household goods, Botox treatments and a leg tattoo.

His niece, Danielle O’Brien, received a 13-month sentence for defrauding the union of more than $300,000 but served her sentence in home detention.