DEWR is consulting on potential changes to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, after finding an increasing number of companies are deliberately using the scheme, designed as a "last resort", to avoid their obligations.
A major construction company has avoided having to compensate a worker despite failing to properly consult with him over his redundancy, after the FWC found on balance that such "deficiencies" ultimately did not make the dismissal unfair.
After a 17-day strike and continued picketing on Saturday despite FWC orders, workers at four Woolworths warehouses have voted up a revised offer, with pay rises of 10.5% to 12% over three years, and safeguards to ensure the company does not use a work-speed measurement tool to automatically discipline workers.
A FWC presidential member has underlined that workers are not immune from retrenchment while on leave or working under flexible arrangements, confirming that operational issues warranting severance can arise at any time.
Mining giant Peabody has won special leave from the High Court to challenge a full Federal Court finding that it did not genuinely make workers redundant when it failed to consider whether it could redeploy workers to jobs performed by contractors.
Two recycling industry workers have been allowed to keep 30% of their redundancy payments after the FWC accepted that while their former employer found them acceptable alternative employment, it involved moving from a "nice, clean" office to a "dusty, malodorous" one.
Rex airlines group's administrators have retrenched almost 600 employees, making them priority creditors, but if they end up relying on the FEG scheme, they're in for a long wait.
The FWC has urged David Jones to improve its retrenchment processes, while opening the way for a long-serving worker to pursue an unfair dismissal case after the department store deemed her unsuitable for redeployment to an area serving "elevated" clientele.
The FWC has refused to reduce two FIFO workers' redundancy pay, finding that redeployment offers did not amount to "other acceptable employment" because they were given insufficient time to consider roster changes that would also have reduced their time at home.
