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 "unpredictable, fluid and highly variable," and that the worker's skills sat mainly on the radio desk at a time the newsroom wanted journalists who could work across platforms. Crucially, his hours were never cut to zero. Shifts were still offered off-roster, and he admitted receiving offers on March 3 and 12, and April 13 and 17.
That was the difference-maker. The Commissioner cited two earlier cases, Jackson and Park, where cutting a casual's hours to nil did amount to dismissal - because in each, the employer stopped offering work at all. Here the offers continued; the worker went silent.
The contract carried weight, too. It said the ABC was "not obligated to offer, and you are not obligated to accept, any particular engagement or offer of work," with "no firm advance commitment to continuing or indefinite work according to an agreed pattern." Every roster email repeated that "rosters are ALWAYS changing."
The worker also argued the March offers were disingenuous - cover for a dismissal that had already happened. That failed on the dates: the ABC was not served with his application until March 11, and the coordinator who kept offering him shifts said she did not learn he had filed until he told her in April.
Finding no dismissal at the employer's initiative, the Commissioner dismissed the application.
For HR, the takeaway is clean. If you run a casual pool where hours genuinely rise and fall with demand, your paperwork is your protection: a contract that spells out no guaranteed hours, roster messages that say the same, and a documented habit of continuing to offer work. Reducing shifts is not, by itself, a dismissal. Stopping the offers altogether is another matter.
