Pub­li­ca­tions

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…

Sep 23, 2019

Fair Work Com­mis­sion crit­i­cis­es time-wast­ing unfair dis­missal applications

In a recent deci­sion, Diane Por­te­ous v G. Kakafikas and A.G. Bek part­ner­ship t/​a Yarra Glen Phar­ma­cy [2019] FWC 6264, Deputy Pres­i­dent Col­man of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (Com­mis­sion) has crit­i­cised appli­cants who com­mence unfair dis­missal pro­ceed­ings and then don’t take the nec­es­sary steps to pros­e­cute their claim. The Case The Appli­cant worked…

Sep 2, 2019

Personal/​carers leave — how it should be cal­cu­lat­ed- lat­est devel­op­ments- August 2019

Cal­cu­lat­ing employ­ee enti­tle­ments can be com­plex and demand­ing at the best of times, how­ev­er the deci­sion of the Full Court of the Fed­er­al Court in Mon­delez v Auto­mo­tive, Food, Met­als, Engi­neer­ing, Print­ing and Kin­dred Indus­tries Union known as the Aus­tralian Man­u­fac­tur­ers Work­ers Union (AMWU) [2019] FCAFC 138 will, unless dis­turbed, add…

Aug 30, 2019

The Reli­gious Dis­crim­i­na­tion Bill: Ini­tial Observations

Fol­low­ing the Mar­riage Equal­i­ty debate and the ongo­ing Israel Folau saga, the issue of reli­gious free­dom has been giv­en some promi­nence. The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment has released what it describes as ​‘reli­gious free­dom reforms’ on which it is active­ly seek­ing sub­mis­sions. The pro­posed reforms will undoubt­ed­ly be the sub­ject of much…