Job and Not the Duties Count

When a business experiences a downturn, it is not unusual for the response to include redundancies. And when this is achieved by dispersing the duties of an employee, who is to be made redundant, among other staff who will remain, it can create some ill-will, and even claims of unfair dismissal because the work is […]

Annualised Salaries and Superannuation

The often-vexed question of exactly how much of an employee’s annualised salary is to be taken into account to calculate superannuation entitlement has been analysed by the full federal court. And it has found that the component of an annualised salary attributed to work beyond ordinary time, is not to be counted for superannuation purposes. […]

New Rules for Flexible Work Requests

From December 1st this year, modern awards will include a new provision concerning employee rights to request family friendly working arrangements. The right already exists as part of the National Employment Standards (NES) but the Fair Work Commission has expanded on those provisions with this decision. Essentially, the new provision requires an employer to discuss […]

Restraint of Trade Clause Too Restricting

Despite evidence of fierce competition between two businesses, a court has found a senior manager can work for her new employer without delay, ruling the restraint of trade provisions in her contract to be too broad to enforce. The company had engaged the manager in a financial role with a six month probationary period. The […]

Get the Paperwork Right

That word “specificity” has reared its head again, with a magistrate finding the lack of it in a contract has probably brought an employer undone. And in so finding, the court has allowed a claim for underpayments to proceed to trial. The company had engaged an administrator on a salary which, it said, was intended […]

At Home on the Job

Employers will need to be on top of their home-based work policies and protocols if trends in the area continue the way recently published statistics suggest. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has published data indicating a third of employed people in Australia now regularly do some of their work from home. A considerable portion […]

Casual Conversion’s Hidden Cost

AMWU v Donau Pty Ltd [2016] FWCFB 3075 (15 August 2016) An engineering and shipbuilding company got a nasty surprise when it made a group of employees redundant – the employees’ length of service was found to include their earlier stint as casuals, greatly increasing their entitlements under the statutory provisions. The problem started for […]

Employer to Employer Adverse Action

Director, Fair Work Building Inspectorate v J Hutchinson Pty Ltd & Ors [2016] FCCA 2175 (9 August 2016) Refusing to do business with a tiling subbie has cost a respected building company tens of thousands of dollars in fines and seen two executives individually fined as well – all because the company was doing the […]