Fair Work Act Australia

An “industrial relations systems” refers to the rules, regulations and institutions that govern the employment relationship and which set the terms and conditions of work and employment. From 2009, Australia had a new industrial relations framework that created a “truly national system in the private sector, the statutory framework and processes have been simplified and the governing legislation had been completely rewritten to reflect the new Constitutional basis for the system”.

However prior to this, in 2006 was the introduction of legislation such as the Workplace Relations Amendment (WorkChoices) Act which was highly controversial because it was seen to shift influence and power dramatically back to the employer and created an unfair balance in the employer-employee relationships. In

Increasing job insecurity and excessive managerial prerogative to “fire at will” were regarded as the wo main problems with WorkChoices. The Fair Work Act introduced the notion of a “ fair dismissal” system that sets out the steps that an employer should go through before dismissing an employee.

According to s 385 of the Fair Work Act 2009, an unfair dismissal occurs ‘ if the person has been dismissed;the dismissal is deemed to be harsh and unreasonable…’. Employees are protected from unfair dismissal as long as they satisfy a probationary period of eomployments (6-12 months) and they are covered by an award or agreement. However, this does not apply for those that are note covered by an award or agreement and earn above the high income