A full Federal Court has extended the recent run of legal setbacks for casual workers, overturning a ruling that a mineworker should be paid a 25% loading on Fair Entitlements Guarantee payments after the labour hire company he worked for entered administration.
The FWC is set to pull the shutters down on what academics hailed as its "bold" decision to give more than four million award-covered workers access to unpaid leave and twice as much annual leave on half-pay in response to pandemic uncertainties.
In a case applying the High Court's new guidelines on contractors, a judge has rejected a worker's bid for leave, super and redundancy payments after finding he was not an employee despite averaging 38 hours a week over eight years for a solitary employer.
The UWU has welcomed a new agreement that pays a 10% increase over three years to about 3000 Star Sydney casino workers and boosts annual leave to five weeks.
IR academics say the High Court's "revolutionary" approach in Rossato signals an intention to rewrite the rules for determining employment status, with potentially dire consequences for gig workers and others seeking to challenge their characterisation.
Employers once said to be facing up to $38 billion in casuals' backpay claims have welcomed today's High Court confirmation that contracts are decisive in determining employment types, while workers' representatives have come out swinging.
The High Court has today unanimously upheld labour hire company Workpac's challenge to a finding that coal mineworker Robert Rossato was entitled to paid leave while engaged as a casual on consecutive contracts for almost four years.
The FWC has tentatively decided, of its own motion, to reinstate a COVID-19 flexibility schedule to the graphic arts award, after it received an incompetent application from an industry representative body.
A former Orix chief executive allegedly sacked without notice while facing corruption charges that were later dropped is now suing the company for more than $1 million in accrued entitlements he claims to be owed plus penalties.
A diamond retailer held to have sacked a sales manager diagnosed with breast cancer because she planned to take leave to recover from surgery is facing penalties and a compensation bill in the Federal Circuit Court.
