Two enterprise agreements have been deemed defective by the Full Federal Court (FFC) after Aldi referred to themselves as “leader” rather than “employer” in their bargaining Notice (Notice) to employees about their representational rights. The FFC upheld the Fair Work Commission’s (FWC) decision and rejected Aldi’s submission that the word change was a “trivial matter”. […]
In important, breaking news, a comprehensive final report was released on 26 February 2019 on the first national review of the model Work Health and Safety laws, which was independently conducted by Marie Boland, the former Executive Director of SafeWork South Australia, in December 2018 (the Review). The Review includes 34 recommendations to amend legislation […]
For the first time, two employers in Australia have been sentenced to prison for breaching Australia’s WHS laws. Two recent cases involving deaths contributed to by employer negligence in the workplace illustrate the need to put safety at the fore of any business as a small business owner, and a Company Director, have both been […]
Labor’s pre-election commitments to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (VIC) (the Act) announced in May last year, are set to be implemented after a landslide win in Victoria in November 2018. If implemented, the changes will increase the maximum fine for death caused by an employer’s negligence to nearly $16 million, making it […]
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has recently held that a labour hire employee transferring ‘in house’ was protected from unfair dismissal after finding that the transfer constituted a “transfer of business” for the purposes of meeting the minimum employment period required to bring a claim for unfair dismissal, being 6 months, on the basis of […]
Thank you to everyone who attended our Christmas Breakfast Seminar on Thursday, 29 November 2018. We trust everyone enjoyed the breakfast and opportunity to mingle and network with other clients. Jane Murray’s presentation ‘Is UR Workplace OK?’ considered the impacts of mental health in the workplace in light of the recently announced Productivity Commission Inquiry […]
In a recent landmark decision of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) which will no doubt have widespread implications for the Australian ‘gig-economy’, the FWC has held that a former Foodora Australia Pty Ltd (Foodora) delivery driver (the Worker) was an employee and not an independent contractor, “despite the attempt to create the existence of an […]
Case #1 In a recent decision, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) held that the demotion of a service supervisor (the Employee) to that of a mechanical service technician constituted dismissal within the meaning of s 386 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (the Act). This decision was made despite a clause in the relevant […]
A recent decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court (Federal Court) has highlighted the cost associated with misclassifying employees as casual. On 16 August 2018, the Federal Court found that a labour hire employee was entitled to annual leave benefits despite being ostensibly engaged as a casual by WorkPac Pty Ltd (WorkPac). The […]
Each workplace is unique. An effective workplace policy will ensure that its workplace policies and practices evolve with the organisation and its internal and external environment. That said, the reason for policies remains the same: to mitigate legal risks for the organisation and align its employees with the organisation’s expectations and procedures. For many human […]