General protections claims involving dismissal increased 17.5% in 2014-15, according to the latest Fair Work Commission Annial Report.
The number of general protections claims involving dismissal climbed from 2879 in 2013-14 to 3382 in 2014-15.
The tribunal received 2429 such applications in 2012-13 and 2162 in 2011-12.
It finalised 3475 cases in 2014-15 and in 1073 of them issued post-conference certificates enabling them to proceed to the Federal or Federal Circuit courts.
Most general protections matters took 62 days to reach their first conference, up from from 59 days (which the report says might be due to the big increase in lodgements), but finalisation times fell from 106 days to 97.
The report notes that “very few parties have opted to use the Commission’s consent arbitration pathway” to resolve general protections matters, with only 16 post-certificate cases (1.5%) going down this track.
General protections claims not involving dismissal also increased substantially, up 12.5% from 779 to 879.
