The cleaning company has come under criticism for the move which has hit four long-service workers
A cleaning company has come under criticism this week after it was revealed the firm terminated four long-service staff members without redundancy pay.
When Spotless decided not to renew the contracts of four full-time employees, they were offered positions an hour’s drive away.
Unable to accept the roles due to travel constraints, the women were then offered jobs in New Zealand – however, most of them were unrelated to the women’s current work.
Two of the women Lynne Davies, 58, and Helen Hammond, 56, worked together at an aged care facility and both have been employed by Spotless for 14 years.
HRD contacted Spotless for comment, but did not receive a response prior to publication.
According to Australia’s Fair Work Act, an employee is entitled to redundancy pay if their position is terminated where the employer no longer requires the job to be done, "except where this is due to the ordinary and customary turnover of labour".
A spokeswoman for Spotless told Fairfax Media that it was lawful and common practice for the company to terminate employment at the end of a contract.
"Spotless’ view is that it can rely on the [ordinary and customary turnover of labour] exception to redundancy pay when employees lose their jobs due to the end of the client contract," she said.
"Our business model involves employing staff to service particular commercial contracts and it is the common practice of Spotless to terminate the employment of employees when a contract ends (other than where those employees can be redeployed)."
The spokeswoman added that Spotless provides all of their people whose roles are finishing, with the full list of job vacancies in our organisation across Australia and New Zealand.
"We do not make assumptions about what types of roles or locations an employee may be interested in."
