Introduction
The understanding of these three commonly used, yet easily
misunderstood constructs was recently tackled by the High Court in
Modelez Australia v AMWU [2020] HCA 29.
Why they are often misunderstood and poorly applied is because
the Australian workplace is no longer restricted to a 38 hour, five
day working week. Rather, the modern workplace is now more
accurately populated by a combination of your 9 to 5 full-time
employee and casual, part-time and FIFO employees, who by contrast,
work to a variety of flexible rosters.
This decision is of particular importance to those employers
whose employees are either part-time, or whose ordinary hours of
work are compressed over less than the traditional five day
week.
