Giacomo is an experienced employment and industrial relations lawyer, helping clients to navigate through complex and strategic industrial relations disputes.
Giacomo provides advice to clients operating in the mining and oil and gas industries as well as local governments, universities and public bodies in relation to employment law and strategic industrial matters. This includes guiding clients through complex and contentious bargaining matters and other industrial relations issues, post-employment disputes, sensitive workplace investigations and statutory (and other) employment obligations and risks.
He is a skilled and passionate advocate, who regularly appears for employers in a variety of courts and tribunals on a wide range of contentious proceedings.
Giacomo is the Deputy Chairperson of the Western Australian Law Society’s Employee Relations Committee, of which he has been a member since 2019.
He has also been a panel member on the Western Australian Basketball Association’s Disciplinary Tribunal since 2018 and was a finalist in the Workplace Relations category in the 2019 Lawyers Weekly 30 Under 30 Awards.
Key deals
Oil and gas industry – construction project
Working with a large oil and gas corporation to navigate union claims and protected industrial action which impacted construction of a significant project. Giacomo also acted in related Federal Court proceedings regarding unlawful industrial action undertaken in relation to the project, obtaining a lengthy injunction and suspended damages order.
Food service industry – redundancy pay obligations claim
Giacomo has acted for a multinational food service company in relation to a number of critical proceedings defending its reliance on the ordinary and customary turnover of labour exception to redundancy pay obligations, including in relation to an appeal to the Full Federal Court in which the company’s practices withstood challenge.
Oil and gas industry – unfair dismissal claim
Appearing for a large corporation as advocate in the successful defence of an unfair dismissal claim brought by a former employee who had been dismissed for engaging in sexual harassment.
Mining industry – majority support determination matter
Appearing on behalf of a large mining company in opposing an application for a majority support determination (MSD) brought by a union.
Oil and gas industry – protected action matter
Acting for an oil and gas industry client in opposing a union application to extend the 30-day period for protected action which had been authorised by a protected action ballot order and ultimately securing a binding agreement from the union that it would cease disrespectful attacks on the client’s employees on social media.
Mining industry – refusal of entry matter
Appearing for a subsidiary of a mining corporation in a dispute regarding the refusal to allow a union official to exercise right of entry onto a vessel which derived from an OHS requirement imposed by the company in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The FWC accepted that the company’s requirement was reasonable and declined to make any orders requiring the company to allow the entry.