Oct 11th, 2017
A full Federal Court has today unanimously dismissed an application by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) and United Voice to overturn the penalty rates decision of the Fair Work Commission.
The full court determined the Commission had not erred in the manner in which it conducted its assessment of the appropriate Sunday and public holidays penalty rates in several modern awards in the retail, hospitality and pharmacy sectors.
It ruled the Commission’s determinations varying awards had not been affected by jurisdictional error, in terms of conduction or application of the modern awards objective under the Fair Work Act (s134).
Employers argued the Commission had not made legal errors and had properly balanced the interests of employers and employees.
The court observed it was not its task to review the correctness of the Fair Work Commission’s conclusions; it was a review of the process by which the Commission arrived at those conclusions to ensure that in performing its statutory task the Commission did so free of jurisdictional error.
It determined there was no jurisdictional error and held that the Commission had properly applied its statutory obligations.
Workplace Info Paul Munro 11/10/2017
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