Is it reasonable to redeploy employees to roles occupied by contractors?

The Full Federal Court of Australia (FCA) in Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley [2024] FCAFC 45 recently upheld a decision of the Fair Work Commission (FWC), which found that an employer was required to consider whether its employees could have been redeployed to positions occupied by employees of contractors instead of having their positions made redundant.

The FWC had found that the redundancies of 22 employees of Helensburgh Mine were not genuine because the employer failed to satisfy its redeployment obligations in section 389 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act). This was because the FWC considered it reasonable for the employer to redeploy each of the employees to roles performed by the workers of two contractors engaged by the employer. The FWC concluded that it was reasonable to reduce the work available to the contractor's workers and to redeploy the employees to perform the work previously performed by the contractors' workers.