News Centre
This is where we share articles and information to help you
Can a worker shoot through to fight bushfires?
It’s bushfire season and hardly a day goes by seemingly without a news story about out‑of‑control bushfires.
Many workplaces have volunteer firefighters in their midst and employers can be unsure of what to do during bushfire season.
Employers need to be across the workplace laws regulating when volunteer firefighters can be absent from work.
An employer who gets it wrong can be faced with an expensive legal claim in the Fair Work Commission.
Can an employee bring a ‘support clown’ to a dismissal meeting?
Summoning an employee to a dismissal meeting is a high stress situation. Get it wrong and an employer can end up facing an expensive unfair dismissal claim.
Update: Sharp Increase to Fair Work Act Fine Amounts from 1 July 2017
The June and July period has heralded a number of important changes to workplace laws.
This month we explain the recent increase to monetary penalties under the Fair Work Act, why you should care and what you should do.
For our take on the new change, read on …
Queensland ‘Industrial Manslaughter’ Laws Coming Soon
The Queensland government has sent shock waves into the ranks of employers in high risk industries with its announcement that a new offence of “negligence causing death” is coming.
For our take on the new workplace death laws, read on…
FWC Penalty Rates Case Decision
If you have been tuning into the news media over the past couple of days, you would have picked up reports that the Fair Work Commission (FWC) was about to hand down a decision regarding Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for a number of modern awards. That...
Out-of-hours Employee Misconduct and Social Media Misuse
Picture this. It is Monday morning and the phone rings.
You are told that over the weekend one of your employees, whilst a spectator at a sporting event, loudly heckled a star player.
Worse still, the employee then went on to initiate a ‘twitter war’ with the player, who happens to have over 2 million twitter followers.
You find out it is ‘all over the internet’ and the employee’s twitter account identifies him as your employee.
Well, a similar situation confronted an employer this year.
What if it happened to you? What action could you take? Read on to find out…
Beware the trap of the disgruntled employee – Part 2
Taking over an established business can be fraught with anxiety for employers.
The anxiety is not one-way and it can take time for a workplace under new ownership to return to its previous harmonious state.
In the final article of our two-part series we feature a dismissal case about the wrong way to manage a disgruntled employee who takes to Facebook.
Make this mistake and the FWC will be reaching for the ‘unfriend’ button.
Beware the trap of the disgruntled employee – Part 1
Disgruntled employees with unresolved workplace issues can be difficult to manage.
Get it wrong and you can be in all sorts of legal trouble.
In part 1 of “Beware the trap of the disgruntled employee”, we feature a case which shows how not to handle a workplace dispute.
Find out how it went wrong for this employer, so it doesn’t happen to you.
Huge payout after ‘sex, lies and workplace bullying’
An employer has found out the hard way, the risks associated with failing to protect a worker from systematic workplace bullying and sexual harassment.
Rather than taking a worker’s complaint seriously, the employer failed to address issues which a Court later considered could have been avoided by “relatively simply means”.
‘Go ahead and sack me’ threat backfires before FWC
When two employees engage in workplace warfare, the employer’s business can become major collateral damage.
A recent unfair dismissal case showcases a clever framework adopted by an employer in an attempt to end a workplace dispute.
As the dispute worsened, one of the workplace disputants even goaded her employer to sack her.
Was the employer being lured into a carefully laid trap?
Did the employer fall for it?
Read on to find out…