We work with human resources professionals everyday, and at all levels. They have been at the forefront of dealing with the most dramatic change of our time felt directly in the workplace. Overnight, most employers have had to confront not only change but the question of how growth, if not survival will look from here. This reality remains for most. The role of HR has been key for employers who depend on the discipline. As…

As you will recall, the view of many is that enterprise bargaining in Australia has run its course. Essentially the view is that there’s little incentive for an employer to bargain (beyond avoiding harm to the business through a tumultuous bargaining campaign) nor for employees who, for some time, have only managed to extract very modest pay increases. Modest wage growth has been a feature for some years as shown below (and note, by the…

Last week I declared that most cases of employee underpayments are inadvertent and that businesses, especially large employers, are working on compliance measures. Subsequently, we have seen more reports of underpayments by large employers. These are businesses who are conducting audits, reviewing their processes, and rectifying inadvertent errors. This is not wage-theft. They are doing the very things “asked” of them and are being pilloried nonetheless. Here’s a shortlist, by no means comprehensive, of what…

Almost daily, we read about employer failure to comply with award or enterprise agreement obligations. Opportunistically and in keeping with the sport of “business bashing”, the failure is termed “wage-theft”, as if to brand every failure deliberate and deserving of criminal sanction and as if to assume that compliance is easy. I’m not here to condone such failures. The law is the law and it should be observed. And it’s quite possible that in many…

At first blush, time-honoured investment principles and the principles to be applied in getting good legal outcomes seem worlds apart. But after practicing law for eighteen years, and observing the financial markets, I have seen many parallels that run between the two. The principles I touch on have been established by the greats, such as Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Barbara Corcoran (real estate, and Shark Tank fame), Ray Dalio (Bridgewater Associates), George Soros (Soros Fund…

The line between lawful and unlawful unpaid work is not always clear. Many companies are contacted by people offering to work on a voluntary basis.  It is often pitched as a “win-win” because the person is willing to work for free in exchange for experience and contacts, particularly in high demand industries such as sports, entertainment, media or fashion. Unpaid work remains lawful provided the person is a genuine volunteer and not an employee. However,…

Seyfarth is proud to announce the promotion of Sarah Goodhew to partner in its Sydney office. Sarah joined Seyfarth in 2015 when it established its Workplace Health and Safety practice. Australia Managing Partner, Darren Perry, said “We are excited to have Sarah become the second lawyer to be promoted to partner since we opened our Australian practice. Having worked in workplace health and safety law for nearly 15 years, she has developed extensive knowledge in…