Unfair Dismissal Laws: the Problem of Application to Small Business.

By Marilyn Pittard

Current unfair dismissal laws give effect to ILO Conventions and Recommendations. However there is considerable scope for exemptions under the Workplace Relations Act

This has not stopped the Coalition Government attempting several times to further exclude small business from the operation of the laws, via changes to legislation and by introducing new regulations.

The main questions raised by the proposed reforms are:

· Is there any evidence to support the government's claims about the benefits of the reforms for job creation?

· As a matter of policy, should governments be proposing job market reforms that erode, or are at the expense of the basic labour market rights of fair dismissal procedures for all workers?

· Is there a futile waste of time formulating and proposing policy that has little or no chance of becoming law?

The first question has been addressed by the Federal Court in Hamzy v Tricon International Restaurants trading as KFC (2001) 111 IR 198 where they say the link is certainly not established.

The second question will have answers from the different spectrums of thought, but Pittard says that there are some basic entitlements and rights that should not be eroded, and protection from unfair dismissal is one of those.

To the third, we can see that ever since the attempts to erode protections were introduced in 1997 they have been unsuccessful, under a Senate of changing composition over that time. There should be thorough investigation of the effects on job creation, and more effort may be more wisely expended in helping small business in more positive ways.

(Australian Journal of Labour Law; vol. 15, no. 2, September 2002)