Every employment lawyer becomes an industrial action lawyer when there is trouble between management and workers over strikes, stop work meetings and the like.

 

Protected industrial actionis withholding services during bargaining for enterprise agreements.

 

Conditions apply:

 

Employees cannot take industrial action before the expiry date of a current enterprise agreement;

Employers can lock out employees who have taken industrial action:

Fair Work Australia can step in if protected industrial action (or the threat of it) is causing economic harm to either employers or employees or is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future.

 

Employees’ pay is docked for the time of the action taken (i.e., for a two-hour work stoppage, workers are docked two hours’ pay).

 

Employers cannot lock out workers who have not taken industrial action.

 

Unprotected actionsuch as snap strikes taken outside of a bargaining period is not an acceptable means of resolving workplace issues, and Fair Work Australia can step in and prevent or stop any such action.

 

If workers do withhold their services outside a bargaining period, employers can automatically dock their pay for four hours. Demanding or paying strike pay is illegal.

 

The staff at John F. Morrissey & Company are trained as industrial relations lawyers and can help and advise whether a workplace stoppage is legal or not.