Industrial Relations Law: Key Concepts And Legal Issues

Answer

Organisations requires reforms and procesess for separation and termination guideline for ensuring seamless transitions for both the staffs and the organisation. However, codifying with organisational policy on termination and separation will also help to ensure consistency in managing the effective employment relationship with the employees (McDonnell et al., 2015). Best policies are necessary for mitigating any risk within the organisation that might lead to the legal issues related to unfair employment activities associated with resignations procedures, employee termination and reduction in force.

Creating separation and termination policies are generally used within the organisation to end the employment relationship. Therefore, in order to keep a record of the employees and manage the business procedures for a sustainable period, these policies are very important.

Question 1.       

Name the piece of Commonwealth legislation that governs industrial relations and describes the purpose of this legislation (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

The purpose of the Fair Work Act 2009 is to adhere to the main Commonwealth standard that rules the employment relations. This legislation governs the relationship in between employer and employee in Australian organisations. In this context, the law offers a protection charge of minimum entitlement, helps to provide stable working environment and justification at work thereby preventing against partiality of the employees (Dowling, 2016).

In this act, the legal implications related to dismissal and resignation policies are included within the policies. The legal policy contains a substantial implication in accordance to the way managing separation. However, workers in the ACT, Victoria and northern territory have the provision of additional protection under the act of unfair dismissal. Therefore, there are specific requirements within the Act related to notices of separation and termination that are applied to all the employees since the year 2010 (Aleksynska & Eberlein, 2016).  In this context, the legal issue is that if an employee fails to follow the policy given by the law they will be subject of termination.

Question 2.       

For your state or territory, name the piece of State/Territory legislation that governs industrial relations for the public sector and describes the purpose of this legislation. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

At present Federal laws are applied to the Victorian territory workers and other employees. The Workplace Relation Act 1996 covers all these laws. The purpose of this act is that, only certain classes of employees are liable to make an application on the grounds of relief to the AIRC charging unfair termination. These are also inclusive of Commonwealth Public sector employees, Victorian employees and federal award employees that are usually employees of the constitutional organisation (O’Rourke & Antioch, 2016). On the contrary, on legal issue on these terms is that the employees are entitled to develop an application to the commission for finding a remedy on the grounds of alleged unlawful termination and separation of the employees apart from those who are particularly excluded. Therefore, employees who are excluded from the regulations of unlawful termination are applied for short-term casual staffs and also fixed-term employees.

Question 3.       

Explain the difference between unfair dismissal and unlawful termination according to the Fair Work Act (2009). (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

Under the Fair Work Act 2009 section 722 it has been stated that an employer should not terminate an individual employee due to temporary absence from work resulting from illness and injury. The legal issues associated with the act stated that the employer could not terminate the employees based on their culture, colour, sexual orientation, age, physical and mental disability and marital status, political, national and social orientation. This event of the action-taking place is known as the unfair termination of employees.

On the contrary, the legal issues related to the act is that unfair dismissal can be found under section 385, part3-2 of the Fair Work Act that deals with the concept of unfairly dismissing employees. Under the act, an employee can be considered to be unfairly dismissed from the organisation in case the action taken by the employer is harsh, and unjustified (Wilson & Pender, 2017). Moreover, it is applicable if the dismissal was not proved in the case of a general act of redundancy and not inconsistency with the small business fair dismissal code. It can be termed as an unfair dismissal of the employee.

Question 4.       

Describe what an employment contract is and discuss the minimum legal terms that MUST be included according to the Fair Work Act (2009). (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

An employment agreement is a negotiation that is established in between employer and the employee. This agreement helps to set out terms and guideline for the employees. A contract can be verbally prepared and prepared by writing. According to fair work act, the contract of employment has to provide minimum notice period that is to be set out in case of national employment standards and enterprise agreement that may be applied (Southey, 2015).

The legal issues are that most of the part in employment contract contains the terms implied by the provisions of law based on the relationship between the employer and the employee, the required duties of fidelity and good faith. Moreover, the legal terms imply the required customs and practices of business that is needed for the specific industry.

Question 5.       

Explain what is meant by ‘disciplinary procedures’ in the industrial relations context and provide two examples of disciplinary processes. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

Disciplinary processes within industrial relations are used to enhance the performance and conduct of the staffs. Examples are:

Performance

At a certain point of time employers may face difficulties with the performance and conduct of the employees, therefore, in order to deal with this issues informally is the initial stage. However, from a legal perspective if informal options fail in any case the formal disciplinary procedure is required to deal with the performance (Nicholson, Pekarek & Gahan, 2017).

Behaviour

Employee misconduct within workplaces ranges from consistent lateness, consistent failure to follow a justified instruction of the management, abuse of the organisation system, bad behaviour within the hostile working environment and committing criminal activity. In all these cases, the legal issues is that an employer is needed to take a step to follow fair and formal disciplinary procedures for the employees.

Question 6.       

Briefly, explain the term “dismissal” and describe the key legal and legislative issues that apply. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

Dismissal is one of the most common methods utilised by the employer to end the employment terms of the staffs. There are two initial forms of dismissal legally by the business, summary dismissal and dismissal with notice. Most of the provisions associated with unfair dismissal are found under the fair working act 2009. The legislation related to the act of dismissal defines that it is the result of the staff’s position is not needed anymore due to the operational transformation (Kellner et al., 2016).

In this context, legal issues are that a genuine redundancy is needed to be in line with all the necessities of the particular award and contact. Therefore, before dismissing a candidate there has been a genuine notification and consultation in order for applying for redundancy.

Question 7.       

Briefly, explain the term “suspension” and describe the key legal and legislative issues that apply. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

The suspension takes place when an employee is sent back home from their work while receiving full wages. However, the suspension is usually part of the organisation’s disciplinary processes for allowing the organisation to investigate the issues. The legal issues are that employees can be suspended from the workplace on medical and health safety grounds. Under the fair work Act section 427, it has been said that in order to suspend an employee a longer notice period up to the duration of seven working days needs to be given to the employees for claiming the action (Adams, 2016).

Question 8.       

Briefly, explain the term “resignation” and describe the key legal and legislative issues that apply. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

Resignation is the procedure of stepping down from a job either in a voluntary way or in an involuntary manner that results usually from a less than unpleasant situation. To be specific, it is an act of the employee for giving up their job position with a formal statement that is generally issued by the workplace employee from their position.  The legal issues associated to the legislation is that it is necessary to note the minimum notice period of termination under the guidelines of national employment standards in Australian. While the employee is applying resignation there are required to be given a minimum day of notice periods. This is necessary to be consulted either by an applicable modern award or the organisational agreement or contract of employment (Holley et al., 2015).

Question 9.       

Briefly, explain the term “redundancy” and describe the key legal and legislative issues that apply. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

Redundancy signifies another form of termination. However, in this specific case, it is generally used by the employer while a decision is been made that there is no longer required of the employees to hold the position. Redundancy takes place often during the launching of new technology for saving costs or for closing down the organisation.

The most necessary legal issues associated with redundancy are redundancy pay. In this regards, employers are legally required to pay off the redundancy pay to all the employees who have served for a period of at least 1 year (Nicholson, Pekarek & Gahan, 2017). Apart from these, specific rewards may also be applicable under a certain scheme of redundancy. However, under fair work act redundancy is not applicable for the employees who are dismissed on the grounds of any reason and this is not applicable for casual workers as well.

Question 10.    

Briefly, explain the term “retirement” and describe the key legal and legislative issues that apply. (minimum of 100 words)

Answer

Retirement is one of the fundamental crossroads of working life. It involves the fundamental change in lifestyle. The legal issues are that when an employee reaches a specific where they feel they no longer wish to serve their employment owing to age. This is known as retirement. The organisation as well can apply retirement to the individual employee on reaching an age of sixty to sixty-five (Barry, 2016).

 In order to keep a balance between the desire to motivate the workforce participation of growing age with the public policy requirement individual capacity based examination is preferable to approach under legal factors. As recommended by the law of Victoria assessment needs to take place on the basis of employees’ capability to perform tasks of their position regardless of their matured age.

References

Please provide a reference list of all the sources of information that you used in preparing this assessment task.

Answer

Adams, E. M. (2016). Human rights at work: Physical standards for employment and human rights law. Applied physiology, nutrition, and metabolism, 41(6), 63-73.

Aleksynska, M., & Eberlein, F. (2016). Coverage of employment protection legislation. IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 5(1), 17.

Barry, M. (2016). Employer and employer association matters in Australia in 2015. Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(3), 340-355.

Dowling Jr, D. C. (2016). How to Determine Which Jurisdiction’s Employment Laws Reach Border-Crossing Staff. Lab. LJ, 67, 347.

Holley, S., Thornthwaite, L., O’Neill, S., & Markey, R. (2015). Reforming a complex system: the case of NSW workers’ compensation and return to work. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 25(2), 85-99.

Kellner, A., Peetz, D., Townsend, K., & Wilkinson, A. (2016). ‘We are very focused on the muffins’: Regulation of and compliance with industrial relations in franchises. Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(1), 25-45.

McDonnell, A., Boyle, B., Bartram, T., Stanton, P., & Burgess, J. (2015). Similarity or variation? Employee representation and consultation approach amongst liberal market economy multinationals. Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, 70(4), 645-670.

Nicholson, D., Pekarek, A., & Gahan, P. (2017). Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2016. Journal of Industrial Relations, 59(3), 305-322.

O’Rourke, A., & Antioch, S. K. (2016). Workplace bullying laws in Australia: Placebo or panacea?. Common Law World Review, 45(1), 3-26.

Southey, K. (2015). Unfair dismissal for Australian workers: the hundred-year journey. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 20(1), 147.

Wilson, J., & Pender, K. (2017). A new era?: Whistleblower protections in Australia. Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (243), 25.