Parliament has passed the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill.

The introduction of the amendments to the Civil Procedure Act 2005 will be postponed for 18 months.

Discussion of the recently passed Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation

There is an issue about how the Fair Work Act 2009 (‘the Act’) impacts upon annual leave payments on termination of employment for federal system employees.

Looks at contract terms and conditions following introduction of Australian the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.

In the recent decision in Chris Birt v K&S Freighters Pty Limited, Deputy President Swan found it unfair to terminate a truck driver who had an accident and refused to pay for the truck repairs.

Fair Work Australia has released a statement dealing with the review of modern awards as required by the legislation.

Businesses should audit internal practices and commercial documents to ensure preservation of their security interests.

Welcome to the final edition of legal directions for the 2009 calendar year.

MUA official could not act as a bargaining representative for Technip employees who the MUA were not eligible to cover.

The plaintiff was employed by the defendants at their optometrist store. A 70 year old customer, Mr Bart, came into the store and requested that the plaintiff repair his spectacles. The plaintiff took the spectacles into the back room to repair them. Unbeknown to her, Mr Bart followed the plaintiff into the back room, and then sexually assaulted her.

In this case, Vero attacked a deed of company arrangement executed by a developer, Ungul Properties Pty Limited (Ungul). Vero had sued Ungul under its rights of subrogation to recover, amongst other things, amounts paid by Vero under seven certificates of insurance issued in relation to the construction of seven strata units at 120-122 Ocean Parade, Blue Bay by Lusted Pty Limited on behalf of Ungul.

Recently we have been involved in the process for modernising the Pizza Hut – SDA National Employee Relations Award 2000 on behalf of Yum! Restaurants Australia. The Shop Distributive and Allies Employee Association (‘SDA’) have opposed this application. One of the first objections raised, which the Full Bench of Fair Work Australia (‘FWA’) decided to deal with as a separate matter, was a jurisdictional challenge on the basis that Yum and various franchisees of Pizza Huts did not operate a commo

In or around 2006, the owners entered into a domestic building contract with the builder for the construction of a single dwelling. The contract required the owners to make payments to the builder upon completion of certain defined stages including, inter alia, the ‘frame stage’ and the ‘lock up stage’. The definitions of the stages in the contract mirrored those in Section 40 of the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (VIC) (‘the Act’).

The mandatory wording requirements should ensure that businesses pro-actively inform customers of their rights.

In response to some recent decisions of Fair Work Australia, the Government has made a number of changes to the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code Checklist (‘the Checklist’). It is prudent that small businesses are aware of the changes made to the Checklist as the changes may affect their current procedures relating to termination of employees, particularly redundancies.

The applicant was an experienced forklift operator who had experience at a supervisory level and acted as health and safety representative in previous employment. He commenced with the respondent in 2007, and was provided with ongoing training for his duties.

How does the Fair Work Act provide for probationary periods?

Two recent unfair dismissal decisions explore the issues of when a termination of employment is not a dismissal but a genuine redundancy - Mr Francesco Di Masi v Coastal Fisheries Pty Limited ATFT Sea Empire Unit Trust and Mr Gim Pheng Ho v A. P. Eagers Limited

Employees can make adverse action claims outside the unfair dismissal regime.