Before the first Right to Disconnect dispute hearing, scheduled for this morning, Pacific National resolved the matter in a private conference, leaving the Fair Work Act's RtD provisions untested after 20 months in operation.
The RTBU will argue in the first right to disconnect dispute hearing that an on-call allowance fails to adequately compensate a worker and the FWC should find reasonable his refusal to answer or make calls on his days off.
A four-member FWC full bench has formally put on hold a review of the right to disconnect provisions, due to a paucity of case law, but recent commentary by tribunal president Adam Hatcher and leading labour law academic Andrew Stewart indicate the jury is still out on the reasons for the litigation deficit and the impacts of the reforms.
With the FWC seeking feedback by early next month on whether to hold off on reviewing its insertion of right to disconnect terms into awards, a leading employment and IR barrister and former critic of the legislation says the lack of test cases is "remarkable".
A leading employment and IR barrister says the four-day working week, working from home and the right to disconnect are part of an unavoidable reorganisation of working hours that is set to become "the big issue of our time".
