News

Failure to consult costs COVID-impacted employer $1K, again

14/12/2020

In October, we reported on the limited compensation awarded to a vehicle leasing consultant who was made redundant within days of the announcement of the JobKeeper scheme, causing him to lose out on potentially thousands of dollars in wage subsidy payments (see our related article). The Fair Work Commission has now been called upon to examine the termination of one of his co-workers, which was also occasioned in April by way of redundancy owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, and having found the dismissal to be unfair, has, for the second time in a matter of months, ordered the employer to observe a week’s wages in compensation.  

Continue reading “Failure to consult costs COVID-impacted employer $1K, again”

Full Bench further clarifies ‘regular and systematic’ casual employment equation

14/12/2020

A hospitality worker has won the right to pursue her unfair dismissal application after a Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) confirmed Deputy President Binet wrongly dismissed the application in September, when she disregarded the employee’s initial period of casual employment to determine the worker had not served the minimum employment period.  

Continue reading “Full Bench further clarifies ‘regular and systematic’ casual employment equation”

2021 Queensland Public Holiday Calendar

14/12/2020

Subscribers, login to your online account, go to ‘Fact Sheets’ and scroll down to the ‘Pay’ subheading to download a handy PDF list of all of the 2021 Public Holidays for Queensland. Don’t forget, there are some additional public holidays in force over the Christmas/New Year period this year (see our related article).

Compensation for abusive worker responsible for “sacking himself”

26/10/2020

Commissioner Cambridge of the Fair Work Commission has awarded compensation to a “difficult” worker who was dismissed for engaging in an “expletive laden tirade” against his operations manager – including twice hanging up on him during phone discussions – finding the employer’s process in terminating the employee by email to be “severely flawed”, despite the valid reason for dismissal.

Continue reading “Compensation for abusive worker responsible for “sacking himself””

Unfair Dismissal extension granted for level of “genuine struggle” rarely seen

26/10/2020

A former retail employee has won the right to pursue her unfair dismissal claim despite lodging it 36 days late, with Deputy President Lake of the Fair Work Commission concluding that the assistant store manager had faced a list of challenges in filing her application within time, acknowledging she experienced “true hardship, genuine struggle the likes of which I do not often see”.

Continue reading “Unfair Dismissal extension granted for level of “genuine struggle” rarely seen”

Dismissal upheld for time fraud exposed by burn-outs in company vehicle

26/10/2020

The Fair Work Commission has upheld the dismissal of an animal management officer after her prolonged and “extensive” time fraud was exposed, following the complaints of her neighbour that someone had been “hooning” (i.e. doing burn-outs) in the Council vehicle supplied to the employee, in their shared driveway during the early hours of a morning in August 2019.

Continue reading “Dismissal upheld for time fraud exposed by burn-outs in company vehicle”

Review confirms unsurprisingly high use of JobKeeper flexibilities

26/10/2020

A report recently tabled in Federal Parliament by IR Minister, Christian Porter, has identified approximately 75% of employers that participated in the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme utilised temporary ‘flexibilities’, such as modified stand-downs, to keep their businesses afloat and maintain staff in employment during the peak of the pandemic.

Continue reading “Review confirms unsurprisingly high use of JobKeeper flexibilities”