Jason Grinstead loses unfair dismissal claim over Gympie gold mine job

A former health and safety manager working on the rehabilitation of a regional Qld gold mine only discovered he lost his job when he turned up to the airport to find no flight had been booked.

A former health and safety manager working on the rehabilitation of an old Gympie gold mine only discovered he lost his job when he turned up to the airport to find no flight had been booked. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

A fly-in-fly-out worker who says he only learned he lost his job when his employer failed to book his return flight has lost an unfair dismissal claim despite being treated “harshly”.

Canberra resident Jason Grinstead took Orbelo Pty Ltd to the FairWork Commission after showing up at the city’s airport in August to find he had no seat on any planes headed to the regional Queensland city.

He had been working at Gympie’s historic El Dorado mine site, about 5km outside the city, where Orbelo had been engaged since April 2022 to clean up the tailings dam.

A published decision by FairWork deputy president Tony Slevin says Mr Grinstead started work as a health and safety manager in July 2022.

He last flew out of Gympie on August 17, 2023.

Jason Grinstead had been working for Orbelo Pty Ltd at the site of the old El Dorado gold mine, where the company had been engaged to clean up the tailings dam.

The report says there was a change of management at the site while Mr Grinstead was away, and when he turned up to the airport on August 28 for the return trip he found no flight had been booked.

He contacted Orbelo to find out why but did not get any response, the document says, and was only officially notified of his termination in an email dated September 11.

Orbelo claimed he had “abandoned” his employment.

Mr Grinstead disputed this, saying his inability to attend work was “due to the actions of Orbelo”.

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Mr Slevin found Mr Grinstead’s employment ticked the box required to classify as unfair dismissal by working for Orbelo for more than six months.

However his agreement fell short at the second requirement that he was under an award or enterprise agreement, and earned less than the high-income threshold.

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Mr Slevin found Mr Grinstead was not covered by the award, and his actual annual contract of $168,000 put him $500 above the $167,500 high-income cut-off.

“The circumstances described by Mr Grinstead strongly suggest that he was treated harshly by Orbelo,” Mr Slevin said.

“It appears that Orbelo has also failed to meet its obligations under Mr Grinstead’s contract and the Act.”

However we was “unable to make an order for a remedy for unfair dismissal”.

Originally published as Jason Grinstead loses unfair dismissal claim over Gympie gold mine job