Employment contracts & conditions | Page 2 (319 items)

Fixed-term contract restrictions have been a challenging reform to manage, but employers can take some comfort from the decisions handed down in disputes lodged so far, a workplace lawyer says in our latest Q&A.

Ernst & Young has defended terminating a senior partner who was charged with assault after hours spent drinking with staff and clients, on the basis his conduct was likely to harm the firm's interests.

Making an employee's pre-parental leave position redundant repudiated her employment contract, but this only turned into a termination when she filed a general protections dismissal dispute, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.

When an employer told a casual employee that it wanted to "take a pause" on their working relationship, it effectively dismissed him, a full bench of the Fair Work Commission has ruled.

Employers require more than a disagreement or impasse to prove an employee has repudiated their contract, a workplace lawyer says.

Frustration of an employment contract in circumstances of illness or injury "is a difficult concept to establish", a Fair Work Commissioner has noted, in clearing a worker to pursue his unfair dismissal claim.

A Fair Work Commission full bench has clarified when the end of a fixed-term contract might constitute a dismissal, finding that a conditional "promise" of ongoing employment wasn't a contractually binding offer.

An employer has failed to prove that it didn't dismiss a worker when it repeatedly refused her requests for part-time work after a period of parental leave.

A litigious employee has failed to convince the Federal Court that her employer breached her contract by rostering her for fewer hours than it had agreed to, back in 2023.

The "commensurate" positions an employer offered its workers because their roles were no longer required were in fact demotions that repudiated their employment contracts, the Fair Work Commission has found.