A casual employee at a Sydney health and fitness centre resigned by email just over an hour after his boss cancelled his shift for refusing to sign a new staff manual. The Fair Work Commission found he had not been dismissed at all, and threw out his claim before it could even be argued.
What the Commission decided
Luca Ferraivolo worked at Revolutions Health & Fitness Centre, run by Leong & Chamma Pty Ltd. In November 2025 the business issued an updated Staff Policy & Procedure Manual and asked all staff, including Mr Ferraivolo, to sign an acknowledgment form.
When Mr Ferraivolo did not sign, the managing director, Paul Chamma, told him over WhatsApp that his shift that afternoon was cancelled and that no further shifts would be offered until he complied. Mr Ferraivolo argued in reply that as a casual employee he was not obliged to sign new policies, and suggested that withholding shifts to force his signature could amount to adverse action under the general protections provisions of the Fair Work Act.
Less than an hour and a half after the first message from Mr Chamma, and about an hour after he first raised his objections, Mr Ferraivolo emailed his resignation. He later argued that he had effectively been forced to resign because of the manual and the shift threat, a situation the decision treats as a forced resignation, or constructive dismissal, under the Fair Work Act.
Commissioner Walkaden disagreed. Applying a test set out by a Full Bench in an earlier case, the Commissioner asked whether the employer's conduct was intended to end the employment, or whether ending the employment was the likely result of that conduct, leaving the worker no real choice but to quit.
The Commissioner found the business wanted Mr Ferraivolo to sign the manual, not to end his job, pointing to the WhatsApp messages showing shifts would resume once he complied. The Commissioner also found the short gap between the shift being cancelled and the resignation meant Mr Ferraivolo had not been left with no real choice but to quit. He resigned about an hour after first raising his concerns, and the Commissioner said a longer period without shifts might have produced a different result, but that was not what happened here.
As a result, the Commissioner found Mr Ferraivolo had not been dismissed within the meaning the Fair Work Act gives that word, and dismissed his application.
What was actually in dispute
The hearing did not go smoothly for Mr Ferraivolo before the substantive issue was even reached. He was notified of the hearing date, confirmed with the Commission's staff on the morning of the hearing that he would attend by video link, and then did not appear. After repeated attempts to reach him, including a voicemail warning the hearing would proceed without him, the Commissioner went ahead and heard the matter in his absence.
The real dispute was always about timing and intention. Mr Ferraivolo's case rested on the idea that cutting off his shifts over the unsigned manual amounted to conduct designed to push him out, or conduct that left him no real option but to leave. The business's position, put through Mr Chamma at the hearing, was that it was simply enforcing a workplace requirement and had made clear shifts would resume once the form was signed. The Commissioner accepted the business's account, largely because of how quickly Mr Ferraivolo resigned after the dispute began.
What this means
This decision turns on the same test used across constructive dismissal cases: employer conduct has to actually be aimed at, or likely to produce, the end of employment before a resignation can count as a dismissal. Workers considering whether a resignation might qualify, and the general protections route this applicant tried to use, can read more at general protections and unfair dismissal versus general protections.