A provision exists in the Fair Work Act, which enables
employers to apply to the Fair Work Commission to minimise
their statutory redundancy obligations to staff whom they retrench.
The basis for such an application (which is made under s. 120 of
the Act) is that the employer has found other acceptable
employment for the employee or cannot pay the amount.
A number of such applications have met with little or limited
success in the past and the recent decision of the Fair Work
Commission in the matter of Sodexo Australia Pty Ltd T/A
Sodexo (C2015/8064) is the latest in this series of
decisions.
As indicated above, s. 120 allows an employer who has made an
employee's position redundant, to apply to the Fair Work
Commission to reduce (or avoid all together) the obligation to
pay redundancy pay where they have obtained other acceptable
employment for the employee.
