You are only asked to write a 'simple' report - eg you do not need an abstract/exec summary or a contents page. You will, however, need an introduction and numerous subheadings as you work through the...

Employment and Contract Formation
Introduction
Our company is considering the options regarding how best to staff our new food delivery business. Of concern is recent case law which suggests there may be legal risks if we use an independent contractor a
angement. This report provides an insight into the Foodora decision and its implication in the present case scenario. The report has elucidated the terms “independent contractor” and “employee” in the legal context and the wise approach that must be undertaken by our organisation to ensure legal compliance. Our boss at “Overdoit Australia” seeks to make the new initiative, involving transport and delivery of food products, economical. The dilemma has arisen when our boss suggested of hiring contractors for the upcoming initiative instead of permanent employees. According to McMahon and Hartmann (2019), the Australian Government, at the moment, has accentuated on law enforcement and its compliance with the industrial laws of the land. This explicitly suggests that underpayment of the contracted employees would beckon legal issues against our boss (Collins, 2016).
Definition of an independent contractor and employee
Before delving into the definition of the two terms, “independent contractor” and an “employee”, it is important to comprehend the role of Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) in the context of protecting employee rights and upholding employer responsibilities. In the words of Howe and Hardy (2017), FWO operates as an independent statutory body of Australia stemming from Fair Work Act 2009. The fundamental motto of the body is promoting productive, harmonious, cordial and cooperative relations at the workplace to necessarily comply with the workplace laws of Australia. Aligning with the given case study, it can be observed that employers can hire two types of employees “independent contractor” and a permanent “employee” (Bailey, Madden, Alfes & Fletcher, 2017). From the Foodora instance, it becomes clear that independent contractor independently manage to run a personal venture. However, employees are permanent part of workforce. In the Foodora case, the ombudsman has argued in court that workers appear as employee when they wear regular uniforms to work. In case of an employee, the individual does not promote the undertaken task or possesses a separate customer base (Stafford, 2016).
Obligations towards employees
Fair Work Ombudsman has released it latest report of 2019-2020, where the statutory Australian body has scaled up the stringency of the regulation protecting work relations. In this cu
ent year, FWO is focussed on four distinct priority industrial sectors and fast food, café and restaurants top the list (Temple, Dow & Baird, 2019). With the declaration of the Government to prioritise law enforcement and compliance with industrial based relation laws, Fair Work Ombudsman has affirmed that vulnerable workers will remain foremost significant for this statutory agency (Kavanagh and McRae, 2017). Therefore, it is a mandate for our boss to comply with the Fair Work Ombudsman regulations, while taking into consideration the contractors that she plans to recruit for delivering the food products. Instances of underpayment or any other payment related issues faced by the employees will be taken up by the statutory agency and thorough investigation will be conducted to get hold of the records (Underhill & Rimmer, 2015).
Impact of the law on employer and organisation
Fair Work Ombudsman has significantly prioritised the financial rights of the vulnerable workers because it is an issue of public interest. Blatant negligence and
each of the law will
ing down serious ramifications on the employers of the organisation (Stewart et al., 2018). These employers either underpay workers or recruit them as independent contractors. Such has been case of Foodora, one of the prominent food delivery companies in Australia.
The Ombudsman has explicitly stated that complaints against employers on the grounds of underpayment to employees will usher rigorous investigation to extract the records (Fairwork.gov, 2019). On proven guilty, the business organisation will receive a notice of penalty infringement from the agency, compliance notice from the inspector. Furthermore, the agency will leverage its power to publicly expose the name of the employers involved in underpayments as depriving workers from their minimum wages is illegal and unacceptable (Tham & Fudge, 2019).
Explanation of the legal consequences if the law is not complied
It is crucial for our boss at “Overdoit Australia” to remain cautious about the serious legal consequences that arise on not complying with the industrial laws. In the recent times, the total expense on
eaching the industrial laws by the employers has jumped up by 15%. The statement implies that penalty up to $63,000 can be issued on the employers
eaching Fair Work Act (Riley, 2016). Furthermore, non-compliance with each law will penalise the managers, directors and other employers to $12,600. The probable legal ramifications for non-compliance with the industrial laws can alter the legal status of the business that makes the ventures prone to lawsuits; audits can be ca
ied out by the government, high penalties can be issues and in worse cases, the entire business can be dissolved (Landau & Allen, 2019).
Recommendation on the policies that need to be undertaken to ensure compliance
Based on the above discussion, it is recommended that employers, such as our boss, who seeks to resort to economical means by hiring contractual workers for expanding the business, must necessarily abide by the industrial laws protecting employees and their payments. It is important that employers must audit their business practices to detect non-complaint issues. The auditing will significantly help the organisation to rectify and work upon the issues. As a result, the possibility of legal risks will be minimised to a great extent (Hardy and Cooney, 2016). Furthermore, it is recommended for the organisations to use genuine accounting software for ensuring compliance with the industrial laws and issues including payroll of employees, collecting sales tax, filling federal and state taxes.
References
Abc.net (2018) Online food delivery company Foodora facing legal action over alleged underpayment of staff Available from https:
www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/foodora-online-delivery-company-faces-legal-action-over-pay/9861178 Accessed on 13 Sept 2019.
Bailey, C., Madden, A., Alfes, K. & Fletcher, L., 2017. The meaning, antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement: A na
ative synthesis. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.31-53.
Collins, L., 2016. A study of whether employee meaning at work is affected by Values Based Leadership.
Fairwork.gov (2019) FWO launches 2019-20 priorities Available from...