Employment and Contract Law: A Case Study on Fair Work Legislation in Australia

This report discusses a case scenario applying IRAC format to discuss the legal issues, relevant principles, their application and conclusion on facts related to employment and contract law in Australia, with a focus on Fair Work Legislation. The report concludes that the employer-employee relationship is governed by various duties and obligations, and the Fair Work Act provides for different entitlements of employees. The report also concludes that Abe is a casual employee of Pretty Blooms Ltd and that the company is duty-bound to provide leaves to Abe.

Case Study

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Issue 1 .........................................................................................................................................3
Issue 2..........................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The employees are the most valuable asset of the organization so it is important that there
must be proper legislations being framed in order to regulate their rights and responsibilities. The
laws governs the relationship of employer and employee. In Australia, The Fair Work
Legislation regulates the rights of the workers and protect them from exploitation. The contract
law is another business legislation which governs the regulates the rights, relation and duties of
the parties who have entered into the valid contract (Walsh, (2021)). This report will deal with
case scenario wherein IRAC format will be applied which includes legal issue, relevant
principle, its application and conclusion on facts.
MAIN BODY
Issue 1
Legal issue:
Whether Abe is an employee of Pretty Blooms Ltd or any other type of the worker?
Discuss relevant principles of the law:
The Fair Work Act provides for different entitlements of the employees which includes
part time, full time, casual, fixed term contract, shift workers, daily or weekly hire, probation,
outworkers and apprentices and trainees. These entitlements are set in National Employment
standards and the awards.
In the case of Neil v. Cameron, the court held that the casual worker is unable to accrue
the significant length of the continuous service in order to obtain the leave for long service, even
if it perform the same work regularly for the same employer (Wang & Connell, (2021)).
Application of principles to the facts of question:
In the given case scenario, Abe and Pretty Blooms Ltd came into the contract that Abe
will work on regular hours but is free to make refusal to the allocation of work at any of the time.
The term of contract also stated that it is not entitled to any personal leave on paid basis or any of
the accrued annual leave. He works on shift basis wherein first shift is of 4 hours in weekdays
and he sometimes work in two shifts in the row. This shows that Abe is a casual employee of
Pretty Blooms as a person can be a casual worker if it accepts the offer for the job from the
employer by knowing that there is absence of firm advance commitment on the ongoing work
with the agreed work pattern.

According to Fair Work Act, the person is termed as casual employee if-
 It is offered the job.
 The offer do not include the firm advance commitment that a work shall continue to be
for indefinite time period with the agreed pattern of the work.
 The employee have accepted the offer by knowing the fact that there is absence of firm
advance commitment and it will become the employee.
There are mainly four factors which tells that the offer of employer do not include the
firm advance commitment. These are discussed below-
 Whether an employee may choose to offer the hours of work of employee and it is the
choice of employee to work or not to work.
 Whether an employee shall be offered the working hours when a business requires them
to work.
 If an employment is described as the casual.
 If the employee is paid the casual loading or the specific pay rate for the casual
employees (Palmer & Williams, (2020)).
In the given case, Abe has been the casual worker as it is being given the choice to choose its
shift or hours of working and that he is also not entitled for the leaves whereas the full or part
time workers are entitled to the paid leaves. Just because an employee has the regular pattern of
the work, it does not mean that it is a permanent worker. As per the National Employment
standards, a casual employee is entitled to the following-
 Access the pathway to become the permanent employee.
 Unpaid leaves such as carer's leave, compassionate leave per occasion, family or
domestic violence leaves and community service leave (Jackson & Collings, (2018)).
The casual worker can make the request for the flexible working arrangement and Abe
also have the flexible arrangement of working as he was entitled to assign its job of delivery to
other drive as per its wish.
Conclusion of facts:
Hence, it can be concluded that Abe is a casual employee of Pretty Blooms Ltd as it has
flexible arrangement of work and was not entitled to any leaves. A casual worker as per Fair
Work Act is the one who has being offered the job which has no firm advance commitment and
the employee accept the job despite of knowing it.

Issue 2
Legal issue:
If Abe is an employee, Whether Abe or the Pretty Blooms Ltd have breach any of the
duties that is owed to each other?
Discuss relevant principles of the law:
Under the common law of Australia, there are many duties of the employer which is
owed towards the employees. The employer is duty bound for the following to inform its
employees-
 What is required to be done in case of emergency.
 What is to be done when the employee is injured.
 The rights to the worker's compensation if it is injured.
 How the complaint or any concern is to be resolved regarding health and safety
(Brownsword, Scotford & Yeung, (2017)).
It is also the duty of the employer to provide the employees leaves as and when it is
required by them. They also have the duty to take care which applies to all the employees.
On other hand, there are many duties owed by the employees which includes the
following- Fulfil all its work obligations on time- An employee is duty bound to make sure that its
work commitments and obligations are fulfilled on time and there is no harm caused to
the business due to its negligence to perform the work. Obligation to comply with every lawful and reasonable direction of employer- The
employee is required to comply with the directions which are provided by the employer,
subject to the condition that it is reasonable and lawful. Obligation to comply with requirements of health and safety: The employee must follow
the instructions provided by the employer regarding the maintenance of the health and
safety at the work so that there is compliance with the statutory laws and common law.
 Not to engage with any conduct which is in conflict- The employee must make sure that
its conduct is not such which can cause harm to the business or the employer. It must act
in good faith and follow the instructions provided by it (Sykes, (2021)).
Application of principles to the facts of question:

Under the given case, Abe as well as Pretty Blooms Ltd both are under the obligation to
perform the duties which is owed to each other. As Abe is an employee, so it has some duties
towards the company and Pretty Blooms Ltd also have duties owed for Abe. The main duty of
the company is to provide the leaves to Abe when it is required by it. Moreover, Abe is under
obligation to fulfil its obligations relating to work on time and do not breach any work
commitments. So in this case, Pretty Blooms Ltd is duty obliged to provide the leaves to Abe to
which it is entitled as it is the right of every employee to get the l;eaves, be it paid or unpaid. If
Abe has been the full or part time employee, it is entitled to the paid leaves while if it is the
casual worker, it is entitled to unpaid leaves. But the most important fact in this is that every
employee is entitled to the leave and hence, Abe is also entitled to it and Pretty Blooms Ltd is
duty bound to provide the leave to Abe for its family wedding.
Conclusion of facts:
It can be concluded from this issue that Abe is an employee so Pretty Blooms Ltd is duty
obliged to provide the leaves to Abe as it is entitled for it. Moreover, Abe is also under work
duty to fulfil its work commitments and obligations.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this report that the employment and contract law are the part of
business legislation which is an obligation of the businesses to make adherence to. The main
legislation under employment law in Australia is Fair Work Act which provides for the
employees and their entitlements. From the case study, it can be said that Abe is the casual
employee of Pretty Blooms Ltd wherein there is no advance commitment in the job.
Furthermore, there are many duties which are owed by the employer and employee and in this
case scenario, Pretty Blooms Ltd is duty obliged to provide leaves to Abe.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brownsword, R., Scotford, E., & Yeung, K. (Eds.). (2017). The Oxford handbook of law,
regulation and technology. Oxford University Press.
Jackson, D., & Collings, D. (2018). The influence of work-integrated learning and paid work
during studies on graduate employment and underemployment. Higher
Education. 76(3). 403-425.
Palmer, M., & Williams, J. (2020). Are Employment Protection Laws for Disabled People
Effective in a Developing Country? (No. 20-22).
Sykes, E. I. (2021). 4 Industrial Relations Research in Australia. In The Challenge of Industrial
Relations in the Pacific-Asian Countries (pp. 48-58). University of Hawaii Press.
Walsh, P. (2021). Employment law: Eliminating COVID-19 risk from Australian workplaces:
Rights and responsibilities. Bulletin (Law Society of South Australia). 43(3). 16-18.
Wang, J. H. Z., & Connell, J. (2021). Taiwanese Working holiday makers in rural and regional
Australia: temporary transnational identities and employment challenges. Australian
Geographer. 52(2). 191-207.