Employment and Migration Blog

Within the context of traditional worker categories, it is uncertain whether either employment or independent contracting rules should apply to those known colloquially as 'gig-economy', or 'platform' workers, or whether an entirely new category (or group of categories) should be introduced.

Although an aggrieved employee is entitled to pursue their rights to the fullest extent permitted under law, employees on their way out can sometimes be motivated to inflict as much pain and suffering on a business, and those who represent it, as possible. This article answers the question 'to what extent can an employee pursue a claim when it either lacks merit, or is vexatious and has been lodged purely to spite the employer?'.

The Fair Work Commission recently made a significant decision pertaining to requests for flexible work arrangements. Since 1 December 2018, the right to request flexible arrangements has been supported by a new modern award clause providing more structure around the process.  The new clause imposes an obligation on employers to discuss the request with the employee and genuinely try to reach an agreement, before making a decision about whether to grant or refuse the request.

In the past few months, there has been a flurry of activity, discussion and legal changes in relation to casual employees. If you have "casual" employees working on a regular and systematic basis, they may in fact actually be permanent employees entitled to annual leave and other entitlements. This means you may have a substantial back pay issue. 

Changes to all modern awards, which have introduced provisions relating to family and domestic violence leave, came into effect from 1 August 2018. This change has come about due to the 4 yearly review of modern awards.

When an employee notifies his / her employer that they wish to terminate their employment, their employment will automatically terminate when the relevant notice period expires. What happens when an employee wishes to withdraw their resignation?

To successfully defend an unfair dismissal claim, an employer must be able to satisfy the Fair Work Commission (FWC) that the dismissal was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable.

The tension between traditional employment law frameworks and the gig economy has come to the fore once again after the Fair Work Commission holds that an Uber driver is not an employee.

In a recent case, the FWC granted its first interim order issued in its anti-bullying jurisdiction, effectively issuing an injunction to stop an employer from proceeding with a workplace investigation. This case demonstrates that dealing with a bullying complaint in a fair way is highly desirable to avoiding external intervention.

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has made a decision to insert a 'casual conversion' clause into 85 modern awards that do not already have such a provision. This will enable casual employees covered by those awards, and who meet the eligibility criteria, to request to convert to fulltime or part-time employment.

A text message can so easily be sent to the wrong person…with potentially disastrous consequences. In the recent decision of Nesbitt v Dragon Mountain Gold, the Fair Work Commission upheld the dismissal of an employee who had accidentally sent a text message to her General Manager.

The Fair Work Commission has announced the changes which will apply to the National Minimum Wage and modern award wage rates from 1 July, 2015. The National Minimum Wage will increase 2.5% to $656.90 or $17.29 an hour. That rate of increases will also apply across award rates.

For those of us working in HR, it is really important that we are clear on what constitutes bullying and in what circumstances the Fair Work bullying provisions apply, so that we can clearly articulate that to our employees.

The Fair Work Commission held that an anti-Muslim email that vilified those of the Muslim faith and sought to motivate readers to take political action against them, had significant potential to damage an employer’s reputation and therefore provided a valid reason to dismiss the employee.

In a matter before the Fair Work Commission late last year it ruled that the termination of one of two workers involved in an entrenched workplace conflict was not unfair simply because the employer could have chosen to sack the other employee.

The Fair Work Commission has ruled that a mechanic who mislead his employer about his qualifications in a job interview was justified in terminating his employment for, among other things, failing to fulfil the inherent requirements of the job.

By 27 February, the Fair Work Commission had received 66 anti-bullying applications, and a member of the Fair Work Commission, Commissioner Cribb has said that they have the following features.

Someone asked me this at a presentation on the new bullying laws last week. And the answer is “No.” In the seven weeks since the Fair Work Commission opened shop for bullying complaints, I haven’t yet had one framed in terms of the new legislation. That’s not to say they aren’t around: Fair Work Commission reported receiving 44 applications in January, which was under the estimate of 70 a month, but still a tidy number for a month when much of the country is still in holiday mode.

The dismissal of an employee who misused his employer’s computer system has been deemed ‘not harsh or unjust’ and has been held to amount to serious misconduct.

In Canberra recently, an interior designer was fired from his day job at a design firm after his employer discovered he was using his LinkedIn page to promote the imminent growth of his personal business to a “full-time design company.” The employee had sent a group email to his connections on LinkedIn, including current clients of the company he worked for, offering his services in a personal capacity.