Australia: “Bosses rapped for valid sacking”

“The nation’s industrial umpire has ruled that a long-term employee who was legitimately sacked for repeated safety breaches must be reinstated and paid compensation because of his poor education and poor job prospects.” [The Australian]

6 Comments

  • Another protected class.

  • “If the applicant had substantially lesser service; had not been a middle-aged man with very poor employment prospects for whom the dismissal has such serious personal and economic consequences;

    So according to the government it is the responsibility of the employer to provide welfare.

    or if it had been brought home to him at any time on 2 September, 2009, that a further breach would have serious consequences, I would not have concluded that the dismissal was harsh,” vice-president Michael Lawler found.

    And why would this additional warning be treated differently by the government than all of the other warnings he ignored?

  • So, now you can get tenure at any job?

  • If you live in Australia.

  • No, tenure at your job is not the result of this case. Refusal to hire will be the result of this case. If you cannot fire someone, the safest thing to do is to avoid hiring anyone in the first place.

  • So jobs get moved behind another layer of corporate protection, the temp agency for life. The principal corporation hires a contract worker from the temp-for-life company. Now they don’t have to fire anyone, just not renew the contract with temp-for-life for next weeks. The man is not unemployed, he is still an independent contractor working for temp-for-life, but has no current assignment and no current salary and access to the office/plant has been revoked. Just like being fired, except that he was never hired. And temp-for-life company takes 10% of his salary, which is run by the brother-in-law of the corporate chief.