Cruel Law: Unfair Discrimination In Australia

The unfair dismissal laws are a set of laws which dictate the terms of terminating an employee and reimbursements to be made if they are terminated unfairly. However, these laws, dictated by the Fair Work Commission, are flawed and extremely biased towards the employee. As a direct result of this, it is almost impossible for employers to fire vexatious employees, leading to an unjust environment.

The Fair Work Commission decides on potential cases of unfair employee dismissal, imposing a legally binding statement, which takes place in a court-like environment. This means that the judge gets the final say on the case, although they may be unaware of the prior circumstances leading up to the termination. This, in addition to the “innocent unless
In the Camilleri v IBM Australia Limited [2014] FWC 5894 case, the company was forced to reinstate the employee for the sole reason that he had been working with the company for 17 years, taking into consideration the employee’s term of service. This is simply unfair as a long term of service does not make up for a serious grievance, especially as his service was riddled with warnings and his inability to work at an acceptable standard. However, this is not the most unjust case, as in Anderson v Thiess Pty Ltd [2014] FWC 6568, the employer was forced to reimburse the employee undeterred by the sending of an extremely racist email, clearly breaching the company policy. The terms for the order of the reimbursement are even more ridiculous, citing the employee’s age (thus difficulty in finding another job) and the “over reliance on a previous verbal warning”. It is even stated in the Unfair Dismissal laws that an employee “could be fired instantly on the terms of a serious breach of the company’s policy”, yet it is found that despite this, even with a verbal warning, it is unfair to terminate the employee. In addition, it takes into account the employee’s age; the employer does not take into account the employee’s age when hiring(to do so would be a breach of anti-discriminatory laws), yet it must be taken into account when terminating the employee. This is extremely unjust to the employer as the Fair Work Commission is manipulating discrimination of the employee’s age. After the termination, the employee’s age is not taken into account when hiring, thus invalidating this reason. The Fair Work Commission manipulates evidence and laws when ordering a reimbursement, showing the unfairness of the Unfair dismissal laws to the