Unfair dismissal

In labour law, unfair dismissal is an act of employment termination made without good reason or contrary to the country's specific legislation.

Australia has long-standing protection for employees in relation to dismissal. Most of that protection was however confined in one of two ways. An employer could not dismiss an employee for a prohibited reason, most typically membership of a union. An individual however could not challenge their own dismissal as being unfair and instead had to rely upon a union challenging the fairness of the dismissal. This remedy however was generally only available in the state tribunals. A similar definition existed at the Commonwealth level , however it was considerably limited by the requirement under the Constitution to establish an inter-state dispute. The ability for an individual to seek relief from unfair dismissal was first established in a statutory scheme in South Australia in 1972, followed thereafter by Western Australia,Queensland,New South Wales and Victoria in the early 1990s.

Protection from unfair dismissal at the Commonwealth level was enhanced in 1984 by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission with its ruling in the Termination, Change and Redundancy Case, that awards should contain a provision that dismissal "shall not be harsh, unjust or unreasonable" and subsequent awards following it were upheld by the High Court of Australia. The Parliament of Australia later extended the reach of protection from unfair dismissal with the passage of the Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993, which was based on the external affairs power and the ILO Termination of Employment Convention, 1982.

In current Australian law, unfair dismissal occurs where the Fair Work Commission, acting under section 385 of the Fair Work Act 2009, determines that:

...
Wikipedia