A 20% pay cut imposed on a general manager while his employer shut its doors due to COVID-19 restrictions breached his contract and did not qualify as a JobKeeper-enabling direction, WA's IRC has held.
The High Court has affirmed the primacy of contractual terms in determining employment relationships, finding a construction worker was an employee of a labour hire company and that two truck drivers were independent contractors despite decades of exclusive service to a solitary business.
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.
The Fair Work Commission has declared a provisional view that it will agree to Telstra's request to terminate thousands of so-called "zombie" statutory individual agreements from the Work Choices era.
Just as the Morrison Government's Omnibus IR Bill says a casual will be defined on the basis of their job offer, rather than subsequent conduct, the labour hire company at the centre of a landmark casuals case has told the High Court employment contracts must be decisive.
A palliative care doctor given 10 minutes' notice that his three-year fixed-term contract was to be succeeded by a six-month contract immediately lost his right to have a tribunal review the new offer, Tasmania's Supreme Court has held.
The FWC has ordered a recruitment company to immediately end the stand-down of a state manager after rejecting its claim that COVID-19 left her with no work, finding instead that it sought to force her to resign.
The latest tranche of Macquarie Bank wealth advisors to sue for alleged underpayments continue to maintain they were paid under commission-only arrangements despite the bank's insistence this was paid on top of a base salary.
In a significant ruling on the standing of independent contractors, a full Federal Court has upheld an appeal by two truck drivers pursuing unpaid leave and superannuation entitlements after working exclusively for a multinational company for almost 40 years.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a World Cup footballer whose pursuit of a coaching career undercut his role with one of the sport's governing bodies.
