Redundancy
What if your workplace rights have been breached?
Being made redundant in your job can be stressful and emotional. It can also cause financial distress if you don’t have enough savings to maintain your lifestyle. It’s important for people to know their rights and prepare for redundancies in the event that they do happen.
A redundancy is where an employer terminates an employee because they no longer require someone to do that job or they require fewer employees to do that particular job.
Redundancies commonly arise where an employer is closing part or all of the business, restructuring the business; cutting staff to save costs or introducing new technology.
What entitlements does an employee who is made redundant have?
Employees who have been made redundant may be entitled to redundancy pay. The purpose of redundancy pay is to compensate employees whose job has become redundant, for lost personal leave, long service leave, and inconvenience and hardship imposed on the employee such as loss of security of employment and other kinds of losses.
Am I entitled to redundancy pay?
The National Employment Standards (NES) under the Fair Work Act 2009 entitle employees to a redundancy payment and sets out the minimum requirements. Redundancy entitlements may also arise out of the terms of an award, an enterprise agreement, an Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA) or other statutory agreement, a contract of employment or a company policy. If you are employed by a partnership or a state government department, you may also have a right to redundancy pay under State legislation.
Employees that are not entitled to redundancy pay are employees of a business which has:
• fewer than 15 employees;
• in some instances, people that are employed on a casual basis;
• people employed on a fixed term contract;
• people where the termination results from the “ordinary and customary turnover of labour”;
• and apprentices.
It’s important that you know and understand your individual redundancy entitlements in case you’re made redundant. If you are made redundant or facing redundancy, we recommend speaking with an experienced employment lawyer who can explain your rights and help you through the process.
For Employers
Andersons’ Employment Law team act for both employer and employee in Employment Law matters. It is unique in this area of law for a firm to represent both sides of the fence. We believe this is a major point of difference in that it affords our team an edge in understanding and mastering how to negotiate for both sides.
Should you be an employer looking for advice on redundancies, Andersons is here to guide you through the process.
How Can Andersons Help?
We offer a no obligation, free first interview of between 20 and 30 minutes to provide you with preliminary and procedural advice. This interview is intended to assist us to gain a general overview of your circumstances, to enable us to advise you if we consider that you have a case worth pursuing, and outline the general process, procedure and likely costs. Please note that the free first interview is not intended to provide you with substantive advice, except in a preliminary sense / context.
The National Employment Standards (NES) under the Fair Work Act 2009 entitle employees to a redundancy payment and sets out the minimum requirements.