Pub­li­ca­tions

Nov 10, 2017

Quirks in mod­ern awards #1: One mon­th’s notice of ter­mi­na­tion under the Pro­fes­sion­al Employ­ees Award

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards con­tain word­ing in rela­tion to notice along…

Nov 10, 2017

Quirks in mod­ern awards #2: Five or six weeks’ annu­al leave under the Nurs­es Award 2010

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards con­tain word­ing in rela­tion to annu­al leave…

Nov 10, 2017

Quirks in mod­ern awards #3: No ​“small busi­ness” exemp­tion for redun­dan­cy pay under cer­tain awards

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards con­tain word­ing in rela­tion to redun­dan­cy pay…

Nov 10, 2017

Quirks in mod­ern awards #4: No over­time rates for casu­als in the Hor­ti­cul­ture Award 2010

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards pro­vide that all employ­ees – full-time, part-time…

Nov 6, 2017

Redun­dan­cies: New case sheds some light on con­sul­ta­tion and rede­ploy­ment obligations

Depend­ing on how an employ­er goes about things, ter­mi­nat­ing staff who are sur­plus to require­ments, can have very dif­fer­ent legal con­se­quences. This arti­cle looks at the lessons for employ­ers in this sit­u­a­tion as appar­ent from deci­sions by the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) and the Aus­tralian Indus­tri­al Rela­tions Commission. The Fair Work…

Oct 12, 2017

Employ­ment law myth No.7: ​“There’s no point hav­ing a restraint of trade in an employ­ment contract”

It is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that courts don’t enforce ​“restraints of trade” (those claus­es in employ­ment con­tracts pre­vent­ing for­mer employ­ees from com­pet­ing with their pre­vi­ous work­place, solic­it­ing their clients and/​or poach­ing staff). In truth, courts will and fre­quent­ly do, pre­vent for­mer employ­ees from act­ing in breach of their con­trac­tu­al restraints. That is…

Oct 12, 2017

Employ­ment law myth No.6: ​“If I pay them a salary, the award does­n’t apply”

Most employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try or occu­pa­tion-spe­cif­ic mod­ern award which pro­vides for min­i­mum terms and con­di­tions whilst so employed. Impor­tant­ly, the awards set min­i­mum pay rates depend­ing on the employ­ee’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion under the award. The clas­si­fi­ca­tion will (depend­ing on the award in ques­tion) be deter­mined by…

Oct 5, 2017

Employ­ment law myth No.5: ​“If they’re not per­form­ing well, I can extend their probation”

Over the next few weeks, we’re dis­pelling some com­mon­ly held employ­ment law mis­con­cep­tions, in a series of short arti­cles. Warn­ing – may con­tain spoilers! Many employ­ers con­sid­er that start­ing new employ­ees off on an ini­tial pro­ba­tion­ary peri­od is a use­ful way to assess their suit­abil­i­ty for the role, before decid­ing to offer them…

Oct 5, 2017

Employ­ment law myth No.5: ​“If they’re not per­form­ing well, I can extend their probation”

Over the next few weeks, we’re dis­pelling some com­mon­ly held employ­ment law mis­con­cep­tions, in a series of short arti­cles. Warn­ing – may con­tain spoilers! Many employ­ers con­sid­er that start­ing new employ­ees off on an ini­tial pro­ba­tion­ary peri­od is a use­ful way to assess their suit­abil­i­ty for the role, before decid­ing to offer them…

Sep 15, 2017

Work­place sur­veil­lance in NSW: hav­ing a com­put­er sur­veil­lance pol­i­cy is a manda­to­ry requirement 

There is a view in some busi­ness­es that the imple­men­ta­tion of writ­ten work­place poli­cies are some­thing of a ​“nice to have” or an ​“option­al extra”, and are ulti­mate­ly a mat­ter of choice for the employer. Whilst there may be no manda­to­ry require­ment to have a pol­i­cy on many work­place mat­ters, the sit­u­a­tion in respect…