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With the Fair Work Bill receiving Royal Assent on 7 April 2009, the Federal Government has followed through on its election promise to do away with 'Workchoices'.
The Fair Work Act 2009 (the Act), including the unfair dismissal provisions, came into operation on 1 July 2009. The provisions dealing with Modern Awards and the commencement of the National Employment Standards will come into effect on 1 January 2010.
The Act makes significant changes to the ways in which claims for unfair dismissal will be made, which is discussed below:
When must proceedings be commenced?
From 1 July 2009, an employee who makes a claim for unfair dismissal must do so within 14 days of the date of dismissal. According to the Government the shortened time period for making a claim is designed to resolve issues between employees and employers quickly with a view to maintaining the employment relationship.
Who can make a claim?
To be protected from unfair dismissal, the Act provides that an employee must:
Be employed for the minimum employment period (6 months if there are 15 or more employees and 12 months if there are less than 15 employees); and Either:
Be covered by a Modern Award; Be covered by a Collective Agreement; or Earn less than the high income threshold which is currently $106,300 per annum exclusive of superannuation.
The Act retains exclusions for employees who are employed for a specified period or task; employed under a training arrangement; or demoted without significant reduction in duties or remuneration.
Exemptions
Small business
The Act changes the position of small business employers. A small business is now defined as a business that employs less than 15 employees.
Note that the transitional arrangements for the Act provide that until 1 January 2011, the small business cut off will be determined as 15 full time equivalent employees. A straight head count will be used after that.
Minimum period of employment
The Act does away with the distinction between probationary periods and qualifying periods. The Act provides that an employee must have been employed for at least 6 months (the minimum period of employment) to be entitled to make a claim for unfair dismissal.
The minimum period of employment is extended to 12 months for a small business employee, i.e. if employment is less than 12 months in a small business, there is no unfair dismissal claim!
The Substantive Application
The Act gives FWA the discretion to hold a conference in relation to an unfair dismissal claim or refer it to a hearing.
Importantly the Act provides that FWA is not required to hold a hearing to exercise its powers. This means that FWA may make orders about a claim from a conference. This is a significant change.
The Act also give FWA the discretion to hold hearings on only certain parts of a matter - the matter may be heard in conference except for one single issue, for example whether or not an employee was properly informed of a policy that was breached.
The Regulations to be made under the Act are yet to be released and it is expected that either the Regulations or the rules of FWA will provide more clarity on the procedure for conferences and hearings.
Genuine Operational Reasons v Genuine Redundancy
The Act provides that a dismissal will not have been unfair if the dismissal was a case of genuine redundancy.
The Act extends employer obligations in this regard when compared to the Workplace Relations Act 1996.
The decision must have been made that an employer no longer required the employee's job to be performed by anyone because of changes in the operational requirements of the employer's enterprise and the employer must have complied with any consultation obligations set out in a Modern Award or Enterprise Agreement.
This is narrower than the current exemption (introduced as part of Workchoices) which refers to a "genuine operational reason or a reason that includes a genuine operational reason".
Further, a dismissal will not have been a case of genuine redundancy if it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances to:
This is significant as employers conducting a redundancy process will now have a positive obligation to consider options for redeployment.
What do the changes mean for Employers?
The biggest issue will be the shortened time frame for unfair dismissal applications. It is also likely that Employers will find themselves before FWA in a conference quite quickly. Given the fact that the process may be sped up, HR Managers should either obtain advice before terminating an employee in contentious circumstances, or undertake a 'health check' of the process before the decision to terminate is made. As decisions may be made in conference, we recommend Employer's seek advice on the employee's claim prior to attending conferences. There is no longer any 100 employee unfair dismissal exemption.
If you would like to find out more about these issues, please telephone Marita of our office today.
Please note that the advice in this communication is general advice only and you should not rely on this advice unless you obtain legal advice specific to your own requirements.
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