Pub­li­ca­tions

Jun 15, 2020

Fair Work Com­mis­sion Full Bench Con­firms Gig Work­er’s Status

The sta­tus of gig econ­o­my work­ers has been a source of exten­sive debate in recent years. Michael Byrnes, Part­ner and Emi­ly Capen­er, Solic­i­tor exam­ine a recent deci­sion by the Full Bench of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion which con­firmed that deliv­ery dri­vers work­ing for gig econ­o­my giant Uber Eats are not employees. In Ami­ta…

Jun 10, 2020

Statu­to­ry Enti­tle­ments for ​‘Casu­al’ Employ­ees: Anoth­er Work­Pac Decision

The Full Court of the Fed­er­al Court recent­ly hand­ed down a deci­sion con­firm­ing that employ­ees cat­e­gorised and paid as ​“casu­als” with reg­u­lar and sys­tem­at­ic work­ing pat­terns might be enti­tled to receive the paid leave enti­tle­ments of a per­ma­nent employee.  This deci­sion, Work­Pac Pty Ltd v Rossato [2020] FCAFC 84 (Rossato), close­ly fol­lows the deci­sion…

May 19, 2020

COVID-19 | The Fed­er­al Court rules on per­son­al leave dur­ing stand down

In the deci­sion Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Elec­tri­cal, Elec­tron­ic, Ener­gy, Infor­ma­tion, Postal, Plumb­ing and Allied Ser­vices Union of Aus­tralia v Qan­tas Air­ways Lim­it­ed [2020] FCA 656, hand­ed down on 18 May 2020, Jus­tice Flick of the Fed­er­al Court ruled that employ­ees are not enti­tled to access paid personal/​carer’s leave or com­pas­sion­ate leave dur­ing a peri­od…

May 18, 2020

COVID-19 | First Job­Keep­er Deci­sion Clar­i­fies Annu­al Leave Request

In McCreedy v Vil­lage Road­show Theme Parks Pty Ltd [2020] FWC 2480, the Fair Work Com­mis­sion hand­ed down its first deci­sion deal­ing with a dis­pute aris­ing under the Job­Keep­er scheme.  The appli­cant, Ms McCreedy, had been employed by Vil­lage Road­show Theme Parks Pty Ltd (Vil­lage Road­show) on a part time basis, work­ing around 15 hours…

Apr 23, 2020

COVID-19 | Redun­dan­cy pay­ments dur­ing the crisis

Michael Byrnes, Part­ner and Emi­ly Capen­er, Solic­i­tor pro­vide an overview of two recent cas­es that con­sid­ered the pay­ment of redun­dan­cy dur­ing the COVID-19 crisis.  Redun­dan­cies are gen­er­al­ly dri­ven by fac­tors such as tech­no­log­i­cal advances, com­pa­ny restruc­tur­ing and busi­ness clo­sures. Now, of course, employ­ers and employ­ees alike need to deal with the…

Apr 14, 2020

COVID-19 | A Short Guide to the Job­Keep­er Pay­ment and Job­Keep­er Flexibility

On 8 April 2020, Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment passed the Coro­n­avirus Eco­nom­ic Response Pack­age (Pay­ments and Ben­e­fits) Bill 2020 and the Coro­n­avirus Eco­nom­ic Response Pack­age Omnibus (Mea­sures No. 2) Bill 2020. Michael Byrnes, Part­ner and Emi­ly Capen­er, Solic­i­tor explains what this means for you and how your busi­ness can access these benefits. THE JOB­KEEP­ER PAYMENT …

Apr 2, 2020

COVID-19 | NSW Par­lia­ment Updates Leg­is­la­tion Relat­ing to Long Ser­vice Leave Entitlements

In the wake of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, NSW par­lia­ment has passed a num­ber of bills seek­ing to alle­vi­ate some of the hard­ships caused by the crisis.  One sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tion of COVID-19 in the employ­ment sphere con­cerns employ­ee access to paid leave enti­tle­ments, such as annu­al leave and long ser­vice leave. This becomes par­tic­u­lar­ly…

Feb 12, 2020

Changes to Annu­alised Salaries under Mod­ern Awards: A Short Guide

From 1 March 2020, changes to the annu­alised salary pro­vi­sions in a num­ber of mod­ern awards will impose more oner­ous admin­is­tra­tive require­ments on employ­ers with respect to award-cov­ered salaried employees.This change was the result of a deci­sion of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) ([2019] FWCFC 4368]) (Deci­sion) as part of its four year­ly review…

Nov 18, 2019

‘Tis the Sea­son to Avoid Fol­ly: Work­place Christ­mas Parties

Last week, Jose Feli­ciano’s fes­tive sta­ple ​‘Feliz Navi­dad’ was played on the radio. Before long, neigh­bours in cer­tain sub­ur­ban streets will be com­pet­ing to see who can put up the most impres­sive (or gar­ish) Christ­mas lights, re-runs of ​‘Love Actu­al­ly’ will be broad­cast on TV with increased fre­quen­cy and Christ­mas…

Oct 17, 2019

Fair Work Com­mis­sion – When will the Full Bench enter­tain an appeal?

A ques­tion often asked by employ­ers fac­ing an unfair dis­missal claim is, what hap­pens if the mat­ter can­not be set­tled? Whilst the vast major­i­ty of unfair dis­missal cas­es are resolved at con­cil­i­a­tion, some pro­ceed to a hear­ing. On rare occa­sions they find their way from a hear­ing before a sin­gle Com­mis­sion­er to the…