In a landmark court ruling in April 2014, relating to age
discrimination in the workplace the Federal Circuit Court in Brisbane imposed
penalties on a restaurant and its directors for terminating the employment of a
worker on his sixty fifth birthday: Fair
Work Ombudsman v Theravanish Investments Pty Ltd & Ors [2014] FCCA
1170.
The employee had worked for the restaurant since 1996 as a
full time employee. Upon returning from long service leave in 2011, he was told
he would be placed on part-time employment.
In the lead up to his...
Thursday, 15 January 2015
Conduct unbecoming means no remedy
An order for
reinstatement or the payment of compensation as the remedies for unfair
dismissal are discretionary and not mandatory: Jeffrey v IBM Australia [2014] FWC 8166 is a case in point.
After long periods of
absence because of illness IBM dismissed Ms Jeffrey, a business analyst, for
the reason that on medical grounds she would not be able to fulfil the inherent
requirements of her role for the foreseeable future.
The Commission found
that the medical evidence upon which IBM relied did not support that conclusion
and therefore found...
Monday, 12 January 2015
Choosey can be costly
The issue of redundancy looms where
an employer loses work to a competitor as part of a tender process.
Often what occurs is that the
employees of the employer, which has lost the work can apply and are accepted
as employees of the employer, which has won the work.
Where an employer is able to
redeploy an employee either within its business or obtain work for the employee
with another employer, and the employee does not co-operate in that process,
the employee may not be entitled to a redundancy payment if employment is
ultimately terminated....
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