Redundancy is a situation where an employer either does not require an employee’s job to be performed by anyone, or the employer becomes insolvent or bankrupt, resulting in the termination of employment. This can occur due to a variety of reasons, such as the introduction of new technology, economic downturns, business closures, relocations, or business restructuring.
Understanding Genuine Redundancy
A redundancy is considered genuine when the person’s job is no longer required due to changes in the operational requirements of the employer’s enterprise, and the employer has complied with any obligation in a modern award or enterprise agreement that applied to the employment to consult about the redundancy. A dismissal is not a genuine redundancy if the employer still needs the employee’s job to be done by someone, has not followed relevant requirements to consult with the employees about the redundancy under an award or registered agreement, or could have reasonably given the employee another job within the employer’s business or an associated entity.
In most circumstances, when an employee’s job is made redundant, they are entitled to receive redundancy pay.
In this case
Anya is a FIFO worker in the catering industry.
When she was made redundant, she was not paid any redundancy as the dismissal was due to the ‘ordinary turnover of labour’.
When her case was reviewed, it was identified that the employer had failed to attempt to re-deploy her to another available position for which she was well qualified to do. This meant that it was not a case of a genuine redundancy and amends were made.
If you are being made redundant, it is always worth asking us to assess the redundancy. We know the Act back to front and inside out!
