Pub­li­ca­tions

Aug 29, 2018

Abuse from the gen­er­al pub­lic: The oblig­a­tions of employers

Recent­ly a radio pre­sen­ter on ABC radio in Ade­laide broke down in tears on air after receiv­ing an abu­sive text mes­sage from a lis­ten­er which had been sent through the sta­tion’s text feed­back number. The text crit­i­cised the pre­sen­ter stat­ing that she had she had con­duct­ed ​“a piti­ful inter­view”, claimed what she said…

Aug 23, 2018

Casu­al Employ­ment: The new rules of engagement

A recent deci­sion of the Full Court of the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia, Work­Pac Pty Ltd v Skene [2018] FCAFC 131 (Skene), held that an employ­ee who had been cat­e­gorised as a ​“casu­al” by the employ­er, Work­Pac, was not in fact a casu­al but rather a per­ma­nent employ­ee and, as a result, enti­tled…

Aug 7, 2018

The ​“Wein­stein Clause”: What is it? Could it be com­ing to Australia?

What is the ​“Wein­stein Clause”? The dis­turb­ing rev­e­la­tions about Har­vey Wein­stein and oth­er enter­tain­ment lumi­nar­ies have put sex­u­al harass­ment firm­ly on the agen­da, embold­en­ing vic­tims to come for­ward to share expe­ri­ences and pur­sue claims, lead­ing to the rise of the #MeToo and #Time­sUp move­ments inter­na­tion­al­ly, and #NowAus­tralia locally.  The lat­est con­se­quence of…

Jul 9, 2018

The AHRC and Crim­i­nal Record Dis­crim­i­na­tion: A Tooth­less Tiger

The recent AHRC report into dis­crim­i­na­tion in employ­ment on the basis of crim­i­nal record, BE v Sun­corp Group Ltd [2018] AusHRC 121, has gar­nered sig­nif­i­cant media atten­tion and com­mu­ni­ty debate. What it serves to high­light is that the Aus­tralian Human Rights Com­mis­sion (AHRC) is a ​“tooth­less tiger” when it comes to dis­crim­i­na­tion…

Jun 26, 2018

Sala­cious facts, impor­tant principles

The atten­tion an unfair dis­missal case receives is some­times pro­por­tion­ate to how sala­cious the under­ly­ing facts con­sid­ered in the case are as opposed to the impor­tance of any legal prin­ci­ples that emerge. Hav­ing said that, an inter­est­ing fac­tu­al matrix (which some­times results in a ​“tabloid” or ​“click­bait” treat­ment of a case)…

Jun 5, 2018

Break­ing up is hard to do — Com­mu­ni­cat­ing ter­mi­na­tion of employment

HARD CON­VER­SA­TIONS Two of the hard­est con­ver­sa­tions to have with any­one are end­ing a rela­tion­ship and ter­mi­nat­ing employment. On the for­mer, the eti­quette guide Debret­t’s gives this guid­ance on the appro­pri­ate method of communication: “Always meet up with your (soon-to-be-ex) part­ner; email and text are a sav­age and bru­tal mode of rela­tion­ship tor­ture”…

May 8, 2018

“Your employ­ee offend­ed me. What are you going to do about it?”: Employ­ee Social Media Conduct

A Com­plaint is Made It’s hard­ly a start­ing or nov­el obser­va­tion that social media plat­forms like Twit­ter and Face­book are not always exem­plars of cour­te­ous, respect­ful dis­cus­sion and debate. Exchanges can often descend into insults and crude ad hominem attacks. On occa­sion these exchanges will end with one of the par­ties threat­en­ing…

Apr 26, 2018

The First Cat­e­go­ry 1 WHS Pros­e­cu­tion in New South Wales: The Mean­ing of ​“Reck­less”

The recent deci­sion of the Dis­trict Court in Stephen James Orr v Cud­al Lime Prod­ucts Pty Ltd; Stephen James Orr v Simon Shan­non [2018] NSWDC 27 is the first to deal with a cat­e­go­ry 1 pros­e­cu­tion in New South Wales under the Work Health and Safe­ty Act 2011 (NSW) (Act). Cat­e­gories of Offences There are…

Apr 9, 2018

What’s in a Name? Job Titles and Mod­ern Award Coverage

The Name Game Amus­ing arti­cles appear on a reg­u­lar basis about the renam­ing of par­tic­u­lar occu­pa­tions in an effort to make them seem more grand or impor­tant than they have been tra­di­tion­al­ly regarded. Some exam­ples that have been cit­ed include renam­ing ​“Bar Atten­dant” to ​“Bev­er­age Dis­sem­i­na­tion Offi­cer”, ​“Labour­er” to ​“Mor­tar Logis­tics Engi­neer”, ​“Garbage…

Apr 4, 2018

Car allowance deci­sion dri­ves unfair dis­missal access

In the recent deci­sion of Sam Tech­nol­o­gy Engi­neers Pty Ltd v Mr Andrew Bernadou [2018] FWCFB 1767 the Full Bench of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) con­sid­ered (as part of an appeal) the issue of how to treat car allowances for the pur­pose of deter­min­ing the annu­al rate of earn­ings for…