Earlier in August, Fairfax broke the story of a Cricket Australia employee, Angela Williamson, allegedly sacked for criticising via Twitter the Tasmanian government’s policy on access to abortion services. It’s become a PR nightmare for Cricket Australia with the news of Ms Williamson’s dismissal doing far greater damage to Cricket Australia’s reputation than Ms Williamson’s…
Tag: Fair Work Act
5 inconvenient truths about ‘casual conversion’
Sally McManus threw down the gauntlet to ‘big business’ last week on behalf of the ACTU at the National Press Club. Ms McManus set out a number of proposals about industrial relations, following through on the ACTU’s various television and social media promises that they would #changetherules. Issues such as a crack down on the gig…
Same-sex marriage and religious protections at work. Are we getting the full story?
The topic of same-sex marriage has been hotly debated since the Government announced its plans for a postal plebiscite on the issue. Most in favour of change recognise this as a human rights issue, and most against change consider it an attack on religion, free speech, or other undefined ‘values’. But there has been very…
‘Because’ – four reasons why a simple word has confused employment lawyers for a generation
There are over 200,000 words in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). It is longer than the New Testament. It is a ‘plain English statute’, which means most of the words are ordinary. The word ‘and’ is used 3,099 times, ‘or’ is used 5,030 times, and the word ‘if’ is used 1,478 times. The word…
Internships – are they legal?
When discussing Industrial relations, an issue that has often fallen through the cracks is that of internships. In many sought after and prestigious professions (including law – see my previous post on this here) it has become commonplace to expect prospective employees to give their time to employers without remuneration. Generally, other than in specific…