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An employee was found to have been constructively dismissed after her employer unreasonably refused to grant her request for part-time work upon returning from maternity leave.
The relevant enterprise agreement entitled a returning employee to work part-time until her child was of school age.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) found that the agreement created a presumption that a request for a return to part-time work would be granted unless there were reasonable grounds not to do so.
On the facts of the case, the FWC was not satisfied that the employer had made a proper assessment of whether it could accommodate the employee’s request.
During the hearing of the matter, the employer had engaged a person to perform the employee’s duties on a part-time basis despite the employer’s insistence that the role required a “dedicated full time on site resource”.
The FWC concluded that the refusal to grant the employee’s request for part-time work was unreasonable and that it was sufficiently inimical to the continuation of the employment relationship as to amount to a constructive dismissal.
Accordingly, the employee had standing to bring an unfair dismissal claim.
If you need assistance with this kind of industrial relations matter, call us on 07 3807 3807 or gethelp@workersfirst.com.au
Read the full article at Lexis Nexis
