This was taken from the hospitality award. The only other award i am formilua with is the meat workers award and it read similar The below clearly states that people who replace employees going on Maternity leave that that person is employed on a temp status only.
32.11 Replacement employees
32.11.1 A replacement employee is an employee specifically engaged or temporarily promoted or transferred, as a result of an employee proceeding on parental leave.
32.11.2 Before an employer engages a replacement employee the employer must inform that person of the temporary nature of the employment and of the rights of the employee who is being replaced.
32.12 Communication during parental leave
32.12.1 Where an employee is on parental leave and a definite decision has been made to introduce significant change at the workplace, the employer shall take reasonable steps to:
32.12.1(a) make information available in relation to any significant effect the change will have on the status or responsibility level of the position the employee held before commencing parental leave; and
Sorry i cant find it at the moment but there is also a clues in there that states that a employer can only demote if the job the employee was doing became redundant.
Been i dodgy old publican I have been in front of the commission twice (apparently your not allow to tell chefs that you will give them a flogging even if they pull a knife on you LOL). But i have never sank so low to do this sort of thing.
