The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is lobbying the federal government and multinational company Mondelez to appeal a Federal Court decision over personal leave entitlements at Cadbury's Hobart site.
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TCCI chief executive officer Michael Bailey met with federal Attorney-General Christian Porter on Thursday to raise concerns about implications from the ruling last month.
In a 2-1 decision, the Federal Court found that when workers take a day of personal leave, they should only have the actual hours they would have worked deducted from their overall leave entitlements rather than one full day.
The action concerned two Cadbury employees who usually worked three 12-hour shifts per week and whether they should be entitled to additional hours of personal leave due to the loss of more hours if they took a personal leave day.
The court found in the workers' favour.
Mr Bailey said the decision created inequities between part-time and full-time workers.
"What this will mean is reduction in part-time employment and job sharing - and pressures on business to offer more jobs on a casual basis, much more complexity in payroll, and added costs for employers trying to comply with the law," he said.
"Two things must happen. The federal government or Mondelez must appeal this decision.
"The federal government must also amend the Fair Work Act to fix this technicality.
"Clearly no one intended for part-time workers to have the same leave conditions as full-time workers when the Fair Work Act was written."
TCCI also argued the decision would place "huge pressure on business to manage this ruling financially".
The changes were yet to be implemented at the Cadbury site in Hobart and parent company Mondelez must request a stay from the court if an appeal was lodged.
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Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Tasmania state secretary John Short said the federal government had an opportunity to support workers' rights over a multinational company by accepting the Federal Court decision.
He said workers should be entitled to only have the hours deducted that they should have worked, and those who work 12-hour shifts should not be at a disadvantage.
"If a worker works a four-hour day, they would get four hours sick leave. For six hours, it's six hours sick leave. And if you work 12 hours, you shouldn't be disadvantaged because of taking a sick day," Mr Short said.
"Companies have significant benefits out of people working 12-hour shifts. It means they can employ only two-thirds of the workforce, because if they didn't have two groups working 12-hour shifts, they'd need to have three groups working eight-hour shifts.
"It's clear through research that this shift work is not good for workers' health. They should be getting 10 days a year for whatever hours they work."
He said at a time when wages were stagnant, it was disappointing to see the TCCI lobbying to take entitlements away from Tasmanian workers.
The federal government made a submission during the court proceedings, which the Federal Court judges found contained "substantial overlap" with the Mondelez submission.
Mondelez argued all workers should have the same amount of personal leave hours per year.