As appetite for simplifying Australia’s workplace law grows following the election at the weekend, small business ombudsman Kate Carnell is preparing to hand the relevant incoming minister a case for overhauling unfair dismissal protections for small businesses. Speaking to SmartCompany on Monday, Carnell said provisions to protect small employers from unfair dismissal in the Fair Work Act aren’t working very well
Is terminating an employee based on expressions of religion legal? At this point, Israel Folau is probably more well known for the outrage caused by his Instagram summary of biblical doctrine than for his career in rugby. The long and ongoing drama of whether he will be fired for that social media post has become
An employment law firm has responded to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s first budget, saying it is set to benefit both SMEs and employees in a multitude of ways. Among last night’s budget delivery was a promise to cut SME taxes to 25 per cent and increase their access to finance with a new $2 billion fund. The instant asset write-off
The recent Westpac v Deng decision acts as a warning to the big banks: follow the rules or risk being called out. In a hearing late last year, the Fair Work Commission ruled that Westpac banking employee Kefeng Deng should be reinstated to his original position after he was not afforded procedural fairness into allegations against him.
A manager at a McDonald’s franchise tried to ‘negotiate’ with disgruntled workers on Facebook, and his post went viral. Here’s a breakdown from an HR perspective. A snapshot of a post from a McDonald’s franchise manager, in which he threatens workers with restricted water and toilet breaks, has gone viral. The post is a case study in
A top executive at Lego Australia is suing the toy company for more than $400,000 because it allegedly fired him when he returned from an overseas transfer to care for his family. Lego Australia director of operations Robert Csano, who had been seconded to Japan since 2016, accused the family-owned company of discriminating against him
An Australian law firm has opened up on the firing of ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie, saying the dismissal should have lasting consequences for employment law cases going forward. McDonald Murholme has responded to news of Ms Guthrie being terminated from her top job at the ABC earlier this week. The highly publicised dismissal has
The firing of the ABC’s managing director Michelle Guthrie, and the subsequent fallout, has been the story of the week. But beyond the headlines are lessons for HR. The termination of the ABC’s managing director Michelle Guthrie this Monday has grown from what the organisation no doubt hoped would be a relatively quiet decision into
Workers are losing extra pay on weekends and public holidays because of deals between unions and businesses not because of cuts to penalty rates, the Turnbull government says. Government MPs aren’t backing a private member’s bill by Labor leader Bill Shorten to restore penalty rates for 700,000 workers, with Liberal Craig Kelly saying the bargaining
The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry has shed light on corporate misconduct at the highest management level. Alan McDonald asks if management will now judge itself by the standards it has demanded, of zero tolerance, from lower level employee’s workplace mistakes? Until now, management has successfully advocated to The Fair
Legal experts have warned businesses to take care when offering staff free incentives like coffee or lunch, especially if these are connected to staff salaries, after a Melbourne cafe was hit with serious underpayment claims from staff this week. Staff at Barry cafe in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote have claimed they had shifts cancelled
Corporate lawyers routinely face the problem of getting conflicting instructions from board directors and owners because their client is a company, lawyers say. The inherent difficulty of taking instructions from a company – a non-speaking, artificial legal entity – was exposed this week after The Australian Financial Review detailed the multi-million dollar fallout between top tier law firm Herbert Smith
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull recently introduced a “sex ban” between ministers and staffers after it was found Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce had an affair with former staffer, Vikki Campion. McDonald Murholme Managing Director Alan McDonald, comments on how it can be inherently dangerous to impose a ban on sexual relations between consenting adults as
The in-house lawyers at Woolworths are set to feel the effects of a discovery that the cleaning contractors working at the bulk of the franchise’s Tassie stores were systemically breaking workplace laws. A lengthy investigation into the cleaning contractors by the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) found “alarming levels of exploitation”, which it attributed to multiple
A managing director has responded to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s now infamous comments about there being “too many kids doing law”, saying that the onus must fall on the universities. According to McDonald Murholme managing director Alan McDonald, the law grad oversupply problem is largely due to the number of places universities offer students wanting
In the midst of an enterprise bargaining agreement dispute the Streets factory workers union, AMWU is encouraging the public to boycott ice-cream products this summer such as Paddle Pops and Golden Gaytimes. McDonald Murholme, Managing Director Alan McDonald, discusses the role social media will play in promoting a public boycott. See below article for more
An ACT contractor has been dismissed after openly opposing same-sex marriage on social media. McDonald Murholme Managing Director, Alan McDonald, highlights that protections for political opinion under that Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) only covers employees, but they could still apply if the person’s working relationship is deemed to have the characteristics of employment. See
A Melbourne labour-hire operator failed to pay a foreign worker for 3 months of work. The operator used the employee’s wages to purchase a Peugeot instead. Managing Director Alan McDonald says referring the case to CDPP shows the judge is clearly trying to send a message that they don’t want these cases coming through the
Australians are remaining in the workforce for a longer period of time, resulting in an aging workforce. McDonald Murholme Managing Director, Alan McDonald, talks to 50 So What about the threat of age discrimination in the workplace and unlawful retrenchment. See below article for more information. Retrenched Because Of Your Age? Here Are Your Legal
Melbourne’s leading Employment Law Firm, McDonald Murholme has been awarded the Acquisition International 2016 Global Excellence Award for Most Outstanding Employment Law Firm. Acquisition International 2016 Global Excellence Awards recognises firms who display continuity in unparalleled performance and are at the forefront of their industry. As McDonald Murholme continues to lead in employment law
