With the Federal Government set to introduce its controversial industrial relations reforms into parliament later this month, debate has well and truly escalated over the proposed merits of such reforms. A key plank of the government’s reforms is the simplification of the unfair dismissal process for employers with less than 100 employees.
by Craig Donaldson
With the Federal Government to introduce its controversial industrial relations reforms into parliament later this month, debate has well and truly escalated over the proposed merits of such reforms. A key plank of the Government’s package is the simplification of the unfair dismissal process for employers with fewer than 100 employees.
Current unfair dismissal laws are a two-edged sword. On one hand, you have employers who are doing their best to manage their workforce but are burdened by the ball of poor performers and chain of costly and time consuming unfair dismissal red tape. Such employers are in the majority, appreciate the value of good workers, and treat their workforce with a decent degree of fairness. On the other hand, you have employers who could be called less than scrupulous. The management style of such employers is appalling, as they treat their workers with disrespect and unfairness. Workers employed by such employers may be unfairly dismissed, but current dismissal laws are in place to provide such workers with recourse to a fair outcome.
I know these two examples are simplistic, but for the purposes of this argument, they illustrate the conundrum faced by the Federal Government. Unfair dismissal laws were put in place to protect workers from unscrupulous and unfair employers. At the same time, they hinder fair employers from getting rid of deadwood. If this deadwood bears a grudge, then the unfair dismissal laws make the going much harder for their employers – so much so that some employers just prefer to pay such workers out to save them the long term hassle of time and money-consuming litigation.
The Federal Government’s workplace relations reforms are unquestionably in favour of employers, and the new unfair dismissal regime will make litigiously minded poor performers think twice about taking action against their former employer. But it will definitely leave employees who are genuinely dismissed unfairly with significantly fewer options, despite the Government’s offer of $4,000 assistance for legal costs. It would seem the Government is damned if they do and damned if they don’t when it comes to unfair dismissals for businesses with under 100 employees.
