When are you at work?  

April 2017

Apparently not when you are attending a union meeting! 

Ms LB was a high school teacher and a member of the Independent Education Union Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory Branch (the Union).  While she was attending a union meeting, she fell, injuring herself and required medical treatment. 

The injury occurred on a Friday, a day Ms LB would ordinarily have been teaching. Ms LB had sought and received the permission of her employer, Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE), to attend the Union meetings. 

She lodged an application for compensation with WorkCover, which was rejected. On review to the Workers' Compensation Regulator, the claim was again rejected. 

On appeal before the QIRC, witnesses for the Union gave evidence of a long standing arrangement between the Union and BCE, dating back to 1993. The arrangement enabled employees who also held positions on the Union's Council and Branch Executive to be released from their duties on a number of days every year, while still being paid ordinary wages by BCE. BCE would arrange a replacement teacher to cover the Union member's classes, and would invoice the Union for the cost of hiring that replacement. The Union reimbursed BCE. The Appellant made the case that the payment of ordinary wages by BCE set this particular absence apart from other types of leave. 

Ms LB had attended such meetings under this arrangement for 11 years without incident. 

In dismissing the appeal, Commissioner Thompson accepted BCE's submissions that Ms LBs' release to attend the Union meetings was a show of "good faith" by the employer, as the employer had done since 1994. 

On the question of whether or not Ms LBs' injury occurred during an activity done in the course of her employment, Commissioner Thompson held that the activities undertaken were not reasonably incidental to her employment. The appeal failed on the Appellant's first argument. 

The Commissioner also rejected Ms LBs' second proposition that the injury was compensable as an "interval case". Commissioner Thompson held that the employer had simply "facilitated" her leave of absence, and had not induced or encouraged her to attend the meetings. The appeal also failed on this point. 

Ms LB has filed an appealin the Industrial Court of Queensland.

compare the decision with "Is drinking coffee work" 

See Byrnes v Workers' Compensation Regulator [2017] QIRC 001