Short Notice Redundancy Allowed by FWC
Monday 16 June 2014 @ 1.28 p.m. | Industrial Law
The Fair Work Commission has found that a manager receiving one day’s notice for redundancy did not amount to a case of unfair dismissal.
Facts of the Case
Paul Murray who was a technical project manager with software development company, Ventyx, was made redundant with one day’s notice after sixteen months of employment. He immediately filed an unfair dismissal claim for the short notice.
Decision of the FWC
The full bench of the Fair Work Commission applied a common sense approach to the unique set of circumstances of the business. The commission found that various factors may affect the timing of redundancy discussions with employees. In this particular case, the confidentiality of client data was extremely important.
Murray’s redundancy came after Ventyx conducted a review of its global business which had been underperforming. The company did not seek to inform employees of its decision because of security concerns for its own systems and those of the clients. The commission ultimately found that, unfortunately, Murray was in between projects with the company and there was no foreseeable work in the pipeline for him. It is stressed that this decision applied to the immediate facts only and it does not mean that in all cases it is necessarily appropriate to give employees such short notices prior to being made redundant.
In this case an important consideration for the commission was that the company had contractual obligations to its clients to ensure confidentiality and security of information that it held.
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