The current wage underpayment compliance climate has claimed its latest culprit… the Star Entertainment Group Limited (Star Casino) who has announced it will spend approximately $13 million (plus interest) to repay around 2200 workers it found were underpaid over a six-year period. This underpayment case reiterates the importance of conducting regular audits of company payments […]
Background The employee (“the Employee”) worked as a call centre employee for the Australian Council of Trade Unions (“the ACTU”) in Victoria. On 21 September 2021, an ACTU Director (“the Director”) discovered posts by the Employee on its Slack platform and his personal Facebook account that it considered offensive, homophobic, antisemitic, mocked domestic violence and […]
Employee working from home fails to comply with a workplace direction to return to work Will an employer have a ‘valid reason’ for dismissing an employee if they refuse to return to work after being issued a workplace direction to do so? In a recent decision, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has decided that employers […]
In only the last few weeks, workplaces have taken a major hit due to the surge of Omicron. With case numbers now in the tens of thousands, Omicron poses enormous challenges for the community, supply chains, and the workforce across New South Wales. To ensure that essential services such as supermarket chains and healthcare remain […]
Savco Vegetation Services Pty Ltd (“the Company”) has failed to persuade the Fair Work Commission (“FWC”) that helping a worker secure a job warranted not paying a worker their redundancy entitlement. The Company applied to the FWC to reduce the worker’s redundancy pay from eight weeks to nil on the basis it was a “strong […]
A General Protections claim before the Fair Work Commission (“FWC”) has been “stopped in its tracks” before it even started. The FWC held that a National Rugby League (“NRL”) referee was not dismissed, but rather, his “maximum-term” 12-month contract expired. It is for this reason that the FWC had no jurisdiction over the matter as […]
A series of challenges to mandatory vaccination requirements has been dismissed on all grounds by the New South Wales Supreme Court. Legal Challenge The legal challenges, lodged on behalf of ‘essential workers’ in the construction, health and aged care and education industries, sought to challenge the validity of the NSW public health orders that restrict […]
Under the National Employment Standards, employees have a right to request from their employer flexible working arrangements in some circumstances. Such requests may involve changes to work hours, patterns or locations so that an employees may either, maintain a work-life balance, continue their caring responsibilities, or may be able to work despite major interruptions to […]
The full bench of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has upheld a decision that the dismissal of a residential aged-care facility receptionist, Ms Kimber, who refused to receive a flu vaccine, was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable. The majority decision maintained that Ms Kimber’s employer, Sapphire Coast Community Aged Care Ltd (the Company), had not […]
The Fair Work Commission (Commission) has officially completed its Casual Terms Review (the Review) following amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (the Act) on 27 March 2021. Schedule 1 of the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Act 2021 (Cth) (the Amending Act) introduced a new definition for ‘casual employee’ under s 15A of […]