Industrial & Workplace Relations Conference

Registration opens

Welcome from the Chair

Melissa Scadden, Managing Partner, Justitia Lawyers & Consultants

9:05AM 

Changes to Labour Relationships: casuals, labour hire and the gig workforce.

What the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing the Loopholes) Bill 2023

• - Casual employee pathways implications and practical tips
• - Advantages and disadvantages of engaging a contractor for labour-hire.
• - Labour hire agreements and avoiding the pitfalls of “sham” contracting.
• - Gig economy and transport worker employment changes from FWC

Nick Ruskin, Partner, K L Gates

9:45 AM

Preventing employee underpayments: wage theft or payroll mistake and new penalties Secure Pay Jobs Act

There is a spate of recent high-profile wage underpayments cases have shown that no industry is immune from lost wages. Whether instances of underpayment are deliberate, misinterpretation of Australia’s complex awards or payroll function error, organisations need to protect themselves from wage underpayment risk:

• - New penalties Secure Pay Jobs Act
• - Practical considerations in employee underpayments
• - Criminalisation of wage theft in Queensland and Victoria
• - Implications for accessorial liability for wage theft for managers

Adam Foster, Partner, Colin Biggers & Paisley Lawyers

10:25AM

Networking and refreshment break

10:50AM

Reducing workplace psycho-social risk: stress, aggression, bullying. Violence and safeguarding employee well-being – recent amendments

• - Recent amendments across the states and territories
• - Changes to model WHS laws by SafeWork Australia
• - Enforcement and penalties by WHS regulators
  •        - Work-related stress
  •        - Bullying and harassment
  •        - Workplace violence
  •        - Organisational culture and leadership
  •        - Work-life balance and workload
• - Employers’ obligations for psycho-social signs and symptoms

Catherine Dunlop, Partner, Maddocks

11:30AM

Anticipating changes to the workplace culture: has flexible work become a non-negotiable right?

• - Recent changes to working from home and encouraging employees to return to workplace
• - Employee privacy
• - Right to Disconnect Bill to the National Employment Standards
• - Determining ‘reasonable’ and ‘unreasonable’ additional hours 

Erin Hawthorne, Partner, Seyfarth

12:10PM

Lunch and networking break

1:00PM

Positive duty and workplace sexual harassment prevention

• - Outlining the key reforms to the prohibition against sexual harassment in the workplace
• - Case examples of sexual harassment claims in the Fair Work Commission
• - Update on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s enforcement of the positive duty
• - Strategies for implementing a preventative approach in the workplace
  - What’s next – additional recommendations from the Respect@Work report

Kellie-Ann McDade, Partner, Baker McKenzie

 How to conduct an effective workplace investigation

• - Reviewing complaints, investigations, and disciplinary action processes
• - Undertaking compliance reviews of existing systems, policies, and procedures

Joel Zyngier, Principal, Gilchrist Connell

2:20PM

Performance management, disciplinary procedures, terminations and preventing unfair dismissal cases.

• - Restructuring and redundancies: difficult decisions ahead
• - Performance management, disciplinary procedures
• - Attending to serious misconduct

• - Termination and preventing unfair dismissal cases.
• - Lessons from recent court decisions

Madelaine August, Partner, Moray Agnew Lawyers

3:00PM

Networking and refreshment break

3:20PM

Modern Awards, Enterprise Agreements, and collective bargaining

• - Drafting single-enterprise, multi-enterprise, and Greenfields agreements
• - Preparing essential statutory documents
• - Negotiating with trade unions
• - Arbitration in the Fair Work Commission
• - Update on Modern Awards

David Woodman, Partner, MinterEllison

4:00PM

Best practice in employment agreements

• - Including providing short- or long-term labour hire from a labour supplier or individual workers; giving advice to host firms and agencies regarding labour agreements; mitigating statutory liability risk to companies and agencies; and advising on the benefits and risks of labour hire.
• - Preventing unfair dismissal cases

Chris Molnar, Partner, Kennedys

4:40 PM