The fruits of forethought: good planning gives employers victory in Fair Work Commission

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal All too often, tales from the Fair Work Commission reveal the woes...

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal All too often, tales from the Fair Work Commission reveal the woes of what happens when employers are too trigger-happy in sacking their employees. When employers lose unfair dismissal claims, it is usually because they have jumped the gun and dismissed the employee...

Read More

NRA leading proactive responses to wage compliance in the retail and fast food industries

As the approaching Christmas season brings 2018 inexorably to a close, the NRA’s Legal Practice Director and Deputy CEO,...

As the approaching Christmas season brings 2018 inexorably to a close, the NRA’s Legal Practice Director and Deputy CEO, Lindsay Carroll reflects on a year that has been a challenging time for retailers and business in general. Never before has compliance with industrial laws been so far at the...

Read More

Top tips for engaging casual employees over Christmas

Written by Sooraj Sidhu and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal According to recent analysis by global job search platform Indeed, 67%...

Written by Sooraj Sidhu and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal According to recent analysis by global job search platform Indeed, 67% of Christmas job opportunities in Australia are created in the retail sector to help serve the Christmas shopping frenzy. Last year, Australians spent in excess of $26 billion during the month...

Read More

Understanding uniform and laundry allowances

Understanding when to pay uniform and laundry allowances prescribed by modern awards is an issue that is commonly misunderstood...

Understanding when to pay uniform and laundry allowances prescribed by modern awards is an issue that is commonly misunderstood by employers. The misunderstanding often arises because employees can claim such allowances on their tax return. However, employers may be in breach of a Modern Award if applicable uniform and...

Read More

What is the ‘gig economy’ and how does it affect me?

By Sooraj Sidhu, NRA Legal You might have heard in recent months the term ‘gig economy’ being thrown around by...

By Sooraj Sidhu, NRA Legal You might have heard in recent months the term ‘gig economy’ being thrown around by politicians, lawyers and leaders in workplace relations. The term, which has become buzzword of the century, refers to the burgeoning number of workers engaged in short-term or temporary positions, either through...

Read More

Family and domestic violence leave introduced into modern awards

From 1 August 2018, modern awards were varied to include the family and domestic violence leave. This means that...

From 1 August 2018, modern awards were varied to include the family and domestic violence leave. This means that employees covered by a modern award are entitled to take five days’ unpaid leave if they are affected by family or domestic violence. The changes do not extend to employees covered...

Read More

Legislative update: Modern slavery in supply chains

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal On 28 June 2018, the Commonwealth introduced the Modern Slavery Bill, which,...

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal On 28 June 2018, the Commonwealth introduced the Modern Slavery Bill, which, if passed, will target the supply chains of large businesses in a bid to quash modern slavery in Australia. A week prior, on 21 June 2018, the New South Wales...

Read More

Domestic Violence Leave set to arrive on 1 August 2018

On Friday 6 June 2018 the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission, in a decision published that afternoon,...

On Friday 6 June 2018 the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission, in a decision published that afternoon, advised that it intended that Domestic Violence Leave would commence through the modern award system on 1 August 2018. Background This decision finalises a process which saw the Fair Work Commission reject...

Read More

Full Bench hands down decision on loaded rates

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal Last Thursday a five-member Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission, headed...

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal Last Thursday a five-member Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission, headed by Vice President Adam Hatcher, handed down its decision in the Loaded Rates in Agreements Case. This case considered eight (later reduced to five) enterprise agreements for which the Commission’s approval...

Read More

Legislative update: What you need to know from 1 July 2018

Legislative update: What you need to know from 1 July 2018 By Victoria Hansen and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal Penalty rate...

Legislative update: What you need to know from 1 July 2018 By Victoria Hansen and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal Penalty rate cuts Following a Fair Work Commission decision handed down last year, Sunday penalty rates for employees covered by the General Retail Industry Award, the Fast Food Industry Award, the Hospitality Industry...

Read More

Court confirms employer’s right to direct employees on sick leave

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal When employees are absent from work on sick leave, employers often have...

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal When employees are absent from work on sick leave, employers often have to walk a narrow line between the lawful and the unlawful. On the one hand, the employee has the right to be absent on sick leave, and interfering with that right...

Read More

Deliberate contraventions of workplace laws empties employer’s pockets

By Emma Treherne and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal An employer who deliberately withheld parental leave payments to an employee...

By Emma Treherne and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal An employer who deliberately withheld parental leave payments to an employee has been ordered to pay a whopping $98,700.00 in penalties. Judge Nicholls of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia held that both the employer and company director of the employer broke...

Read More

Visual contracts – opportunity or risk?

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal Written contracts are a staple of legal relationships, including the employment relationship....

By Alex Millman and Lindsay Carroll, NRA Legal Written contracts are a staple of legal relationships, including the employment relationship. They are not without their problems – long, complicated, wordy, incomprehensible, full of legalese … as lawyers, we have heard all of these complaints. To combat this, engineering and infrastructure consultancy...

Read More

Part 3 of our Modern Award Series – How do we classify our employees?

As discussed in Part 1 of our Modern Award Series, the first step to determining if a modern award...

As discussed in Part 1 of our Modern Award Series, the first step to determining if a modern award applies to your business is to check clause 4 (Coverage) of the modern award in question. This clause will set out the industry to which the award applies. You must then...

Read More

Part 2 of our Modern Award Series – Distinguishing amongst modern awards

As you would have seen in Part 1 of our Modern Award Series ‘How to work out which modern...

As you would have seen in Part 1 of our Modern Award Series ‘How to work out which modern awards apply in your business?’, it can be quite confusing working out which award has coverage over a business in the ‘food services’ industry: From the diagram above, you can see...

Read More

Additional Obligations when Making Redundancies

By Sid Sidhu, Workplace Relations Advisor, and Emma Treherne, Principal Workplace Relations Advisor, NRA Legal Are you aware of your...

By Sid Sidhu, Workplace Relations Advisor, and Emma Treherne, Principal Workplace Relations Advisor, NRA Legal Are you aware of your obligations when making 15 or more staff redundant? Employers looking to dismiss 15 or more employees by way of redundancy are required to carry out additional obligations under the Fair Work...

Read More