No letter, no meeting - just a roster that quietly went dark, then bit back

She was never told she was fired - her booking app simply went dark, and the Commission called that a dismissal.

In a decision handed down in Brisbane on June 2, 2026, the Fair Work Commission found that switching off a casual worker's access to her rostering platform was enough to end her employment - no termination letter, no meeting, no word said out loud.

The case involved Celestine Cooley-Cartan, a casual therapist at Lanspagroup Pty Ltd, which runs day spas in Surfers Paradise and Tweed Heads. Her shifts ran through a booking system called Fresha, where therapists viewed bookings, checked hours, and confirmed work.

She resigned in September 2025, then began a new casual arrangement in December. By early January, her bookings were vanishing. The decision says existing bookings were reassigned to other therapists, and at one point a client who asked for her by name was handed to someone else.

Then came a one-minute phone call. The company's director told her room availability was tight and the busy season was winding down, so shifts might be limited, according to the decision. Cooley-Cartan says nothing was said about ending her work - but right afterward, her Fresha availability was shut off.

When she asked why, the decision records the director's reply: "this is not a termination of your employment, we just don't have many bookings to offer at the moment." She asked only that her roster stay...

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