The department bungled the communication, but the law had already ended her employment years earlier
An employee vanished for eight years without approved leave—but when her unfair dismissal claim reached Fair Work, she learned she'd been gone too long.
The Fair Work Commission ruled last week that Veronica Stark's employment with the Victorian Department of Education ended automatically in 2017, not in 2025 when the department finally told her she was no longer on staff. The November 24 decision underscores a trap many HR teams fall into: confusing termination by the employer with termination by statute.
Stark had been on approved leave without pay from March 2013 until February 2017. When that leave ended, she simply didn't come back. From February 28, 2017, she was absent without any authorization. The department flagged her status in the payroll system with a "Stop Pay" entry that ran until February 2025, then extended it to December 2030.
Nothing changed until February this year, when Stark sent an email asking why she'd been placed on unpaid leave through 2030. Her inquiry set off a flurry of letters from Werribee Secondary College, where she'd previously been deployed.
That's when things went sideways. The school principal wrote to Stark in May, citing the Education and Training Reform Act but telling her the employment would end "at your own initiative" three days after the letter. Days later, the acting principal sent another letter saying her job had ceased under...
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