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An employee let his family circumstances cloud his judgement of an employer's return-to-work requests, seeing them as "pushy and unwelcome" when in fact they were reasonably "firm", the Fair Work Commission has ruled.

The Citic Pacific Mining Management field service technician was employed on a fly-in, fly-out basis, living in Victoria with his wife and two young children and working at a Pilbara mining site. Between March 2020 and August 2021, however, he largely remained in the Pilbara, with border restrictions meaning he spent only a few weeks with his family over the 17-month period.

He returned home in August after injuring his hand and was cleared for duties in December, but the Western Australian border remained closed, so he took annual leave. During this time, his wife got a job and he cared for their children while she worked.

The employee then went back to site in mid-March when the border opened, but two days later his wife said she and their children weren't coping with his absence and that if he didn't return home immediately he might not have a family to come back to...