Employee disputes termination over alleged protruding screws, making customer work

A worker who allegedly left protruding screws on products and had his customers carry materials for him has won compensation after the Fair Work Commission found that he was unfairly dismissed.

Rujiang Wen was terminated by Sydney VIP Blinds in August 2025 for alleged historical unsatisfactory performance following a complaint from a customer who was asked to carry materials for him.

These alleged performance issues included Wen leaving protruding screws on products and failing to properly secure the product that was being secured.

In his 6 February 2026 decision, Fair Work Commission deputy president Thomas Roberts found the dismissal itself was fair but Wen was not provided procedural fairness in the lead-up.

At the 20 January 2026 hearing, Wen denied performance issues were ever raised during his employment, submitting that the alleged issues were not due to workmanship but product faults.

The company’s director, Xiang, submitted that WeChat communications between himself, Wen and other installers between October 2022 and May 2025 revealed criticism and photographs of Wen’s allegedly defective work.

Xiang also submitted a list of defects to the commission, which he had compiled after Wen’s termination. This list showed Wen’s work for the period between January 2025 and August 2025, demonstrating that 28 of his installations needed follow-up rectification work to be done.

Wen disputed this list, saying that they were due to faulty products, not his workmanship, which he was not responsible for. Despite this, Wen appeared to accept that he had been told by Xiang that future work was to be done in a particular way, as opposed to the methods Wen previously used.

In consideration of this evidence, Roberts was satisfied that the applicant was given verbal warnings about his performance “in the period February to May 2025 and that his dismissal related at least in part to the unsatisfactory performance in this period”.

In addition, the deputy president found that there were real and ongoing issues regarding Wen’s performance and thus ruled that this was a valid reason for dismissal.

Although Roberts ruled the dismissal valid, he found that “the applicant’s employment was terminated shortly after the respondent received a customer complaint about the applicant’s work”.

“The applicant was not told why he was being dismissed and was not given a reasonable opportunity to give his response before the decision was made and the dismissal effected,” the deputy president said.

From these findings, the deputy president ruled the dismissal was unfair.

In determining a remedy, the commission found that Wen was unlikely to be employed for more than a further four weeks, and had he not been terminated as a result of customer complaints and numerous verbal warnings about his performance, there was a real likelihood that the work issues would have been repeated.

Thus, the commission ordered Sydney VIP Blinds to pay Wen one month of remuneration for lost wages less 10 per cent, as he had not made sufficient efforts to mitigate his losses.

Roberts ordered the amount of compensation to be conferred and agreed upon by the parties within seven days of the decision, and in the absence of agreement, the matter will be relisted for the purpose of finalising the terms of an order.

The case citation: Mr Rujiang Wen v Sydney VIP Blinds Pty Ltd (U2025/13400).