The Full Bench held that s 524(1)(a) of the Fair Work Act does not authorise an employer to stand down an employee where useful work is available for the employee to perform, even if the employee refuses to perform that work as part of protected industrial action in the form of a partial work ban. The stand down provision is directed at circumstances where there is no useful work available, not where an employee refuses available work. However, the Full Bench also held that, separately from s 524, an employer retains the common law right to refuse part performance and decline to permit an employee to work where the employee will not perform the full range of contractual duties — meaning that although the stand down was not authorised under s 524(1)(a), no compensatory order was appropriate because the employer was entitled to refuse the employee's offer of partial performance.
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