For what period does the employer owe no wages, and what facts fix when that period begins and ends?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In a practice file of this kind, we read the attendance and timesheet records showing which hours the worker was absent, any notice or union material identifying the dispute as industrial action, and the pay slip for the month, since the provision turns on both participation in the dispute and the labour not provided during it.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading takes the two conditions together: where a worker takes part in a dispute and provides no labour because of it, the employer owes no wages for that period, so the unpaid stretch is fixed by the hours of absence that the participation and the failure to work cover, not by a fixed period set in the provision.
Another reading notes what the provision does not say: it gives no test for when participation in a dispute action begins or ends, and it says the employer has no duty to pay rather than that wages already earned are forfeited, so a partial-day stoppage or work already performed that day is left open.
Your judgment
If the stoppage began part-way through a shift, what in the record would show which hours were lost to the dispute rather than to an ordinary absence?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the Act is amended to define the dispute period or to fix how partial-day participation is treated, or if a court decision sets a point at which participation is taken to begin or end.