Unfair Dismissal Lawyers

Can a small business be exempt from unfair dismissal? Unfair Dismissal Lawyers weigh the case of the Manager of a Flight Attendants’ Union who sued for unfair dismissal.

The Flight Attendants’ Association is a nationwide union of flight attendants. It had dismissed a union development manager for volunteering as campaign administrator for the division secretary when the secretary ran for the national position. After she was dismissed, she stood as the support person of the division secretary during the investigation of the allegations of gross neglect of duty, gross misbehaviour and breach of fiduciary duty. After that, the FAA dismissed the secretary for allegedly supplementing his base pay with payments from a bank of leave days of the members of the FAA.

When they filed claims for unfair dismissal, the FAA raised the issue that the Fair Work Commission had no jurisdiction to hear the claims for unfair dismissal because the FAA was an employer of fewer than fifteen employees. The union claimed that the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code and not the Fair Work Act should apply to them.

The division secretary and the union development manager asserted that the elected officials of the union who were elected by the members of the union should be counted as employees. For if the elected officers of the FAA were counted as employees, the employees of the FAA would exceed 15 and the Fair Work Act will apply.

In deciding the question of whether the elected officials should be considered as belonging to the legal definition of “employees” will also include a determination if they engaged in work in any form and if their salary arrangements fall under the definition of “wages”.

Under the Small Business Dismissal Code, an employer may dismiss an employee without notice or warning when there are reasonable grounds to believe that the employee committed severe misconduct such as theft, fraud, violence and serious breaches of occupational and health safety procedures. The employer must file a complaint with the police for the theft, or fraud. For other causes of dismissal, the employer must give the employee notice that they are in danger of being dismissed. The employer must also provide the employee with the opportunity to respond to the warning.

The employees of a small business must file a claim for unfair dismissal if the employer failed to comply with these requirements. They can file a claim with Fair Work Commission and not Federal Court. In effect, the jurisdictional question raised by the FAA is meant to work as a dismissal of the unjust dismissal filed by the division secretary and the union development manager.

Are you a small business owner? Do you need advice on unfair dismissals? Do you need Unfair Dismissal Lawyers to write up a policy or protocol for dismissals for your small business? Call us at MKI Legal today.