EMPLOYMENT LAW

Employment Law in Australia

Contents

Introduction1

Purpose of the Employment Law1

Scope of the Employment Law2

Fair Work Act2

Key Provisions of the Employment Law3

Application of the Employment Law in Business Context3

Working at Best Practice3

The Fair Work Act and Business3

National Employment Standards4

Parental leave4

Annual Leave5

Personal /carer's Leave5

Compassionate leave5

Community Service Leave5

Public Holiday5

Notice and Redundancy Pay6

Modern Awards6

Enterprise Agreements7

Unfair Dismissal Laws7

Law of Employment Issues for Business8

Policy Considerations for Businesses8

Conclusion9

References12

Introduction

Workplace law can be compared to the foundation of a building over which workplace is constructed. The essential materials in the construction of this building are the practices and the system used by the employers in their connection with employees. If the materials are strong and arranged in well-organised manner then the building will be able to survive any legal storm. Conversely, due to improper arrangement of the materials building may slip off its foundation or may damage.

In Australia, Workplace law has three main sources: the common law (made by judge), industrial instruments (awards) and legislation. Organisations and other businesses that involve workers must make sure that they abide by each of these sources of the Workplace Law. Their act of defying these laws can bring about time consuming and expensive legal conducts. Employment contract is in the midst of the employment connection. This contract includes terms and conditions. The centrepiece of the employment law is “wages/work bargain”. The employment contract includes implied and express terms. Implied terms are either the implication of law or fact implication whereas expressed terms are stated in the written or oral form.

Purpose of the Employment Law

The employment law developed to take into consideration the inequality in employer-employee relationship and to provide protection to an employee from the fiscal or other kind of exploitations. To realize the importance of Workplace regulation, we can consider our lives, firmed by our jobs, way of living and the way we analyse ourselves.

The consolidation of the employment relationship occurs when the employer offers a job and an employee accepts it because of monetary, fiscal and other rewards. Like any other contract, the employment contract is enforceable legally whether it is in written or verbal form. Each party makes promises to the contract and in case when these promises not fulfilled, then some legal remedies are available to enforce the contract. Furthermore, this contract imposes several obligations and rights on both an employee and the employer (Tham, 2007, pp 4). Decision of court and commission as well as the acts of parliament established these laws.

The law of employment has developed to address the radical changes related to the workforce makeup of the past century, significantly in relation to the women workforce (Gahan, 2009, pp 6).

Scope of the Employment Law

Fair Work Act

The Australian Federal Government established Fair Work Act 2009. On July 1, 2009, Fair Work Act commenced the aspects in which dismissal code for small businesses, new laws for unjust dismissal and bargain requirements for both employers and employees when making the enterprise agreements were included. This act includes:

The safeguard of minimum conditions of ...