Industrial relations news - Australian Security Industry Association Ltd (ASIAL)

Industrial relations news

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The High Court of Australia’s has overturned a decision of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission in OH&S convictions.

The High Court has overturned the conviction of a NSW farm owner in an appeal against a decision by the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission’s arising out of the death of an employees in a vehicle accident. Read more...

Making a Pregnant Worker Part Time Discriminatory

Businesses should be very careful dealing with requests for changes of hours of work, ensuring that no employee is discriminated against. Read more about this topic by logging into the member area.

Employer fined $20,000 for underpayments

Employers face heavy fines for failure to meet their statutory responsibilities to employees – ignorance is not an acceptable excuse in Court

An employer who for six years underpaid a casual employee and failed to provide payslips or keep proper records for superannuation purposes has been ordered to pay a $22,200 penalty.
The employee had been a Casual between 2002 and her resignation in 2008.
Following a Fair Work Ombudsman investigation, the employer admitted to paying the employee below the minimum wage, failing to pay a district allowance, and not providing her with payslips or meeting other administrative requirements for the majority of the six-year period.
After attempting to argue it had given the employee food and drinks, used furniture and loans worth $23,000 – including issuing an invoice to the employee for that amount – the employer paid the 25-year old employee $24,560.20 in back wages.
In a Federal Magistrates Court hearing on penalty, Federal Magistrate Janet Terry was presented with evidence that the director and manager of the employer had a poor command of English, that this was their first business and they did not realize they were underpaying the employee.
Federal Magistrate Terry also took into account the small size of the business, absence of any past contraventions and the fact it had paid the wages it owed the employee.
However, she said, found the penalty should reflect that the director and manager had been "reckless in the extreme" in failing to make inquiries about their obligations as employers "in circumstances where they had never run a business before and intended to set up business in a country with whose laws they were not familiar".

There was also a strong need for specific and general deterrence, she said. Federal Magistrate Terry ordered the employer to pay penalties of $10,000 each for the failure to pay the minimum wage and district allowance, and $1,100 each for failing to provide pay slips and superannuation paperwork.

ATO Urges Crack Down on Sham Contractor Arrangements

There are 1 million contractors in Australia and a recent Australian Tax Office (ATO) audit found that 84% breached tax rules. This has prompted the ATO to call on the Federal Government to crack down on sham contractor arrangements. As if to prove the point, in December 2009 a Sydney real estate company and its director were fined almost $30,000 for underpaying a salesperson more than $20,000 as a result of sham contracting . IT workers, professional consultants and construction workers are those likely to be hit by any tightening of contractor rules.

Important court decision concerning casual staff

A contract miner who disputed his status as a Casual employee has been awarded access to annual leave entitlements in a recent decision of the Federal Magistrate’s Court.

The case is important for the security industry, because the court found that despite clearly being engaged as a casual, the worker's pre-set defined shift roster was "stable, organised" and had "a certainty of working hours" more indicative of permanent full-time employment.

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Disclaimer

Note: The information provided above is for convenient reference only. ASIAL and Chris Delaney & Associates Pty Ltd provide this information on the basis that it is not to be relied upon in any or all cases, as the circumstances in each matter are specific. Accordingly, we provide this information for general reference only, but we advise you to take no action without prior reference to an Employee Relations professional. ASIAL members can contact Chris Delaney by emailing ir@asial.com.au