His rostered shifts hit zero - but the offers of work never actually stopped
A casual journalist thought vanishing shifts meant he had been sacked. The Fair Work Commission disagreed.
The decision, handed down on July 17, 2026, is a useful reminder for anyone running a large casual workforce: fewer shifts is not the same as dismissal - not while the offers of work keep coming.
The worker had been a casual journalist in the ABC's Melbourne newsroom since September 2024, mostly on the afternoon radio desk. He said his hours held up through most of 2025, then fell in November and fell again from December into the new year. When two fortnightly rosters in a row listed no shifts for him, he decided he had been dismissed on February 20, 2026, and filed an unfair dismissal application five days later.
The ABC's answer was simple: no one dismissed him. He was a casual whose contract ran to late July 2026, his shifts had always moved with operational need, and he was still being offered work - by text - in March and April. He stopped replying from March.
The Commission turned to the meaning of "dismissed" under section 386 of the Fair Work Act - broadly, that the employer ended the relationship on its own initiative, or forced a resignation. The worker had not resigned, so the real question was whether cutting his rostered shifts was the employer ending things.
It was not. The Commissioner accepted that casuals were used to cover absences, surges and major events, that demand was...
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