ENTERPRISE AGREEMENTS – dispute about matter arising under agreement – ss.604, 739 Fair Work Act 2009 – permission to appeal – Full Bench – decision at first instance dealt with a jurisdictional objection raised by James Cook University (University) re the National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU) had no standing to bring a dispute to the Commission under cl 44(b) of the James Cook University Enterprise Agreement 2016, as it was either not a party to the agreement or it was not appointed as the representative of any employee – University also contended 17 April 2018 meetings re notifications of redundancy and 19 April 2018 NTEU dispute notice regarding the 18 April 2018 ‘change proposal’ were separate matters requiring separate authorisation under the agreement – Full Bench found appeal had no practical utility as the dispute over the 18 April 2018 change proposal was resolved – also no issue of correct interpretation of the agreement arose as it was accepted the NTEU was acting in the capacity of a representative of affected employee under clause 44(c) – Full Bench also found NTEU representation of employees at the 17 April 2018 meetings also related to the dispute raised by NTEU on 19 April 2018 – permission to appeal refused. Appeal by James Cook University against decision of Booth C of 5 June 2018 [[2018] FWC 3282] Re: National Tertiary Education Industry Union
September 14, 2018
TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT – termination at initiative of employer – resignation – ss.385, 394 Fair Work Act 2009 – application for unfair dismissal – whether applicant resigned or was dismissed – applicant acknowledged he resigned but submitted he was forced to because of conduct of respondent – applicant employed as counsellor and relationship educator and also worked for a men’s group not part of respondent – applicant shared an article with men’s group using respondent’s email that was expressing views in breach of respondent’s policies – Commission held that respondent had a right to determine what policies operate in its business – held that applicant was obliged to carry out his duties in accordance with those policies – noted that respondent’s policies are deficient in certain areas – held that applicant’s Employment Agreement does not deny him the freedom to hold personal views and beliefs at odds with respondent’s policies – Commission considered O’Meara v Stanley Works P/L – found that there was no evidence that applicant had not been carrying out his duties in accordance with respondent’s policies – held that there was no evidence that an ultimatum was given to applicant – found that applicant was not forced to resign but voluntarily exercised a choice to do so – application dismissed. Tiller v Relationships Australia Western Australia Inc
September 14, 2018
TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT – minimum employment period – transfer of business – ss.311, 384, 394 Fair Work Act 2009 – application for unfair dismissal remedy – jurisdictional objection – whether applicant had met minimum employment period – applicant was labour hire employee and then employed directly by respondent – Commission considered whether applicant’s service with former labour hire company and respondent was continuous in order to meet minimum employment period – whether a connection between labour hire employer and respondent under s.311(5) of Fair Work Act – whether work of applicant was outsourced and ceased to be outsourced when new employment began – distinction between outsourcing and providing supplementary labour through labour hire – not accepted as outsourcing – Commission found no connection between labour hire company and respondent – no transfer of business – jurisdictional objection upheld – application dismissed. Abbott v Acciona Infrastructure Australia P/L
September 14, 2018
MODERN AWARDS – 4 yearly review – s.156 Fair Work Act 2009 – Full Bench – as part of the 4 yearly review the Clerks-Private Sector Award 2010 has been re-drafted in plain language – on 1 December 2017 a revised plain language exposure draft (revised PLED) was published – in a Statement issued on 19 January 2018 [[2018] FWC 411] (January Statement) the Full Bench outlined a number of outstanding items in relation to the revised PLED – interested parties invited to make submissions – submissions received from Ai Group, ASU, ABI, Business SA and MTA – this decision resolves the majority of outstanding issues that were raised in the January Statement – some additional issues also addressed with further directions where necessary – revised exposure draft incorporating changes to reflect this decision will issue shortly – Interested parties are invited to make submissions in accordance with the directions by 4.00 pm on Monday 24 September 2018. 4 yearly review of modern awards – Plain language re-drafting – Clerks-Private Sector Award
September 14, 2018
Seventeen unfair dismissal/labour dispute applications are listed for hearing in the Fair Work Commission today. The list is: Petbarn Pty Ltd (Farrokhzadi), Royal Park Medical Clinic (Sparks), Serco Immigration Services (Sharma), K & A Abboud Collision Repairs P/L (Gadsdon), Blue Care Sandgate (Casey), Real Dental Pty Ltd (Chan), Frankston and District Basketball Association (Weidemann), Gippsland & East Gippsland Aboriginal Co-operative Ltd (Sullivan), Health Magic Pty Ltd (Norton), Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (Sharp), Metro Tasmania Pty Ltd (Crawford), Cutuli Electrical Pty Ltd (Cannon), Australian Certified Organic Pty Ltd (Copeman), Shutdown Staffing Services (Prouten), Vision6 (Johnstone), Fujitsu Australia Limited (Muraahi), Totally Aussie Security (Qld) Pty Ltd and Associated Entities (Greenslade).
September 13, 2018
An application for variation of the Mack Fire Protection Pty Ltd & CEPU NSW/NFIA Sprinkler Fitting Fire Protection Union Enterprise Agreement NSW & ACT 2015-2019 (s.210 – Application for approval of a variation of an enterprise agreement) is the preserve of Fair Work Deputy President Gostencnik in the Fair Work Commission 11 Exhibition Street Melbourne at 5.15pm
September 13, 2018
The queue awaiting adjudication of unfair dismissal/labour dispute complaints in the Fair Work Commission now tops the hundred mark. The list is: Ramsay health Care (Buksh), Central Capital Pty Ltd (Zhou), Goodsell Real Estate Pty Ltd (Lynn), University of Sydney (Rahim & Macdonald), WorkPac Pty Ltd (Star), Sydney Trains (Tio), Bill Buckle Autos Pty Ltd (Watkin), Australian Federal Police (Read), Australian National Maritime Museum (Aththas), TTEC (Summers), Frankston and District Basketball Association (Blackley), State Revenue Office (Watson), Blue Sky Real Estate Pty LTd (Bradley), Melbourne Flight Training Pty Ltd (Prossor), Accountants and Tax Agents Pty Ltd (Selvakumar), DRW Investments Pty Ltd (Amoid), Metro Tasmania Pty Ltd (Crawford), Catholic Diosece (Hansen), Horan & Bird Energy Pty Ltd (Gaunt), Ventia Utility Services Pty Limited (Dyer), Square Won Pty Ltd Atf Dart Family Trust (Andrews), Lycamobile Pvt Ltd (Gnanaratnam), Northern Territory of Australia (Daysh), The JW and JA Swatell Family Trust (Johnson), N & HM Cooper Motor Search (SA) & Car Clearance Centre (SA), Flight Plan Digital Pty Ltd (Moffitt), Hisense Australia Pty Ltd (Jones), Castlemaine Perkins Pty Ltd (Davey), Victoria Police (Tierney), ORC International Pty Ltd (Bastoni), Apple Pty Limited (Rowley), Westpac Banking Corporation (Deng), Catholic Healthcare Limited (Newton, Hickson), Hall Industries Australia Pty Ltd (Zotti), Angie’s Cafe Pty Ltd (Lovett), Prestige Automotive Services (Nguyen), The Trustee for J&M Aceski Family Trust (Southurst), Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia (Walsh), Signage Distribution Brisbane Pty Ltd (Jones), Airlie Beach Dental (Fourie), Australian Sports Commission (Bradford), Gadens Lawyers & Green (Gooding), Virgin Australia Airlines Pty Ltd (Turner), The Archer Hotel (O’Leary), Broad Spectrum Pty Ltd (Barlett, Edwards, Griffin, Key, Partridge, Sawford, Waters, Zegarac), Balalrat Hy Motel Pty Ltd (Huang), Bronze Hospitality), Trinh Giau Family Trust (Nguyen), Australian Postal Corporation (Gutteridge), Patrick Projects Pty Ltd (Deeney, Hughes, Park, Seiffert), Helena College Council Inc (Snyder), Bunbury Farmer’s Market (Wanyuni Semmens), Vogue vets Pty Ltd ATF the Durecco Trust (Gallivan), Mirrabooka Doctors Surgery (Dolby), Pittwater RSL Club Ltd & United Voice (Caruso), The Trustee for Bonanno Family Trust (Roberts), National Australia Bank Ltd (Wallace), French Par-Bake (Keogh), Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Q) (Forrest), Svitzer Australia Pty Ltd (Male), Energy Queensland Limited (Ward), University of Southern Queensland (Johnson Morgan), WADMIN Pty Ltd (Landrigan), Australian Industry Trade College Limited (Allison), Viterra Operations Pty Ltd (Pridham, Rose), Sharp Airlines (Oehms), L.V. Dohnt & Co Pty Ltd (Climas), St Columba College Munno Para Inc (Brewer), Australian Western Railroad Pty Ltd (Newton), Yancoal Mining Services Pty Ltd (Davies-Roe), Goldfish Crest Employment Pty Ltd (Sternbeck), Programmed Skilled Workforce Pty Ltd (Tranter), Workforce Recruitment & Labour Services Pty Ltd (Kelly), Hoyhaul Pty Ltd (Bailey), Perth Re Pty Ltd (Akpey), Lou Lou Hair Salon (Black), Jamil S.J.S. Pty Ltd & Jimee (Ali), Brown & Watson International P/L (Brown), M Bordignon & F K A Family Trust (Hall), Australia for UNHCR (tamu), Harbour Town Discount Fruit Barn (Singh), Moreton Bay Island Real Estate Pty Ltd (Marchmont), Woolworths Group Limited ?(Mitchell), Rapid Rewinding Pty Ltd (Krishna), Community Bridging Services (CBS) Inc (Horne).
September 12, 2018
The four length of the queue of applicants awaiting unfair dismissal and labour dispute adjudication cannot be authoritatively determined because of stuff-ups to the implementation of a $3m upgrade to the Fair Work Commission computer records system. The known list is: ACT Health (Rusanov), Genius Learning Pty Ltd (Fernando), SCECGS Redlands Ltd (Cleary), Patrick Projects Pty Ltd (Deeney, Hughes, Park, Seiffert), Qantas Airways Limited (Rowe), Linfox Armaguard Pty Ltd (Mangamuri), Sacred Heart Mission (Bertuna), Mr Hobson (Chaplin), Prosegur Australia (Kukalev), Queensland Property Investments Pty Ltd (Owens), S & S Employment (Trajkovski), Department of Justice and Regulation – Barwon Prison (Pecevska), Australian Federal Police (Bekavac), Bis Industries Limited (Connolly), Seed Distributors (Renaglia), DK Cleaning (Swarbrick), The Archer Hotel (O’Leary), Seven West Media Limited (Perrin), Woolworths Group Ltd (Chitubura), Brisbane Catholic Education (Humphrey), St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne Pty Ltd (Dobler), Accounts Australian Manpower Solution & Services Ltd (Sharma), The Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Home Affairs) (Gibbens), Melbourne Flight Training Pty Ltd (Prossor), national Australia Bank Limited (Papathanasiou), TIOVE Pty Ltd (Chen), Energy Queensland Limited (Ward), Transdev Queensland Pty Ltd (Guorgi), Smithfield Smash Repairs Pty Ltd (Juras), Hanson Construction Materials Pty Ltd (Pericich), Brisbane Catholic Education (Humphrey), 4WD Accessory Wholesale Pty Ltd (Constable), Commercial and Legal (Legal Services) Pty Ltd (Coombe), Target Australia Pty Ltd (Brook), Accountants and Tax Agents Pty Ltd (Selvakumar), Hoyhaul Pty Ltd (Bailey), Greenland Holding Group (Majeed), Rydaba Pty Ltd (Stephen), Dyson (Matthews-Slark), Premier Security Group Pty Ltd (McMahon), The Roman Catholic Trust Corporation for the Diocese of Cairns (Osborne), Cutuli Electrical Pty Ltd (Cannon), Logistics SC Pty Ltd (Kennedy), Hertz Australia Pty Ltd (Tham), Rand Transport (1986) Pty Ltd (Groza), My Mac (Australia) Pty Ltd (Barca), Strathfield & District Hebrew Congregation (Tov-Lev), Spotless Facility Services Pty Ltd (Thapa), MSS Security (Meechan), The Trustee for J&M Aceski Family Trust (Southurst), Wilson Security Pty Ltd (Lynch), Rew Bros Pty Ltd (Mabior).
