Bullying – or Reasonable Management Action?

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Often in bullying cases, the FWC is called on to distil if what has occurred is reasonable management action or bullying.

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Can Notice not be noticed?

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The tricky issue of exactly when has notice been effected, featured in two recent FWC decisions which examined when an employee knew, or ought to have known, of notice of an event.

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Independent medical request deemed reasonable

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  After repeated requests for full and better particulars about an employee’s fitness for work went unfulfilled, an exasperated employer required the employee to attend an independent medical examination (IME). When she refused, continuing instead to provide opaque certificates from a GP, the employer refused her request to return to work and stopped paying her. […]

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Consultation key in mandatory jab case

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Despite numerous activities which could well be described as consultation, a major employer has failed to convince the FWC that it fully consulted with its workforce on the implementation of mandatory vaccination. Because of those shortcomings, the employer had failed to comply with WHS obligations. Therefore the FWC found the directive was unreasonable.

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Taking on new employees? Super laws are changing

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The superannuation laws have been changed to accommodate employees changing jobs but keeping their ‘old’ fund in their new workplace. The laws reflect the reality that people move around from job to job and chopping and changing super funds depletes their worth, with various administrative costs eating into balances.

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Redundancy and Obtaining Alternative Employment

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When an employer was making some employees redundant, it worked with another business to obtain offers of employment for those employees. As a result of those efforts, some of the redundant employees were offered employment with that other firm.

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Job Duties Not Binding

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During the life of their employment an employee can become attached to the job they are performing. This can lead to an employee believing the details of that job are one and the same as their employment contract. Consequently they form the view that any changes to those duties or details can only occur with mutual agreement.

But almost universally, the tasks or duties identified on recruitment or thereafter are not implied terms of the contracts of employment such that a change of duties required by the employer is a repudiation. This fundamental aspect of the employment relationship led an employee into error when she claimed constructive dismissal.

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Don’t Take Zombie Agreements for Granted

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Many employers eschew bargaining, content to follow their old agreements. The recent federal Attorney-General’s Dept report on the state of bargaining bears this out with a continued decline in the number of new agreements approved.

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