As Australian employment law develops, it becomes harder for employers to keep up with it. Employees are becoming more aware of their workplace rights too. Therefore, employers must ensure that they understand their obligations when it comes to dismissing employees, reducing the risk of an unfair dismissal or other claim, such as a General Protections claim.
Setting out a detailed employment policy is an important proactive step you can take to prevent employee issues from arising in the workplace.
Redundancy payouts can be a large cost to a business that may already be struggling, but there are ways to ease this threat.
In our article about a bullying case leading to a record $5.2 million award of damages, we highlighted how employees are now increasingly making general protections claims. However, general protections claims can even be made by people who aren’t even employed in your business. Prospective employees or contractors are protected from being adversely affected due to a variety of attributes including but not excluded to, race, religion and gender. These are called protected attributes.
Due to requests from some of our franchise clients, we launched our external Payroll Audit Service to review Payroll and Award/Enterprise Agreement compliance at the franchisee outlet level.
Due to huge media attention over the past 1-2 years, you will be aware of the variety of large-scale employers underpaying their staff. Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, respected universities, and IBM have all been guilty of it and faced the consequences.
On 22 October the Federal Circuit Court found that Barry Café in Northcote, Victoria, “deliberately contravened workplace laws and exploited staff”. The Court found the café exploited vulnerable workers by refusing to offer shifts of work to anyone that complained.
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