Overseas Redeployment Not Reasonable

Multi-national employers will be pleased to learn that the Fair Work Commission ( FWC ) has agreed that it was not reasonable for an employer to redeploy a redundant worker to overseas operations.

The Australia-based employee brought an unfair dismissal claim claiming his dismissal was not a genuine redundancy. The employee sought to challenge the termination of his employment on the basis that his former employer should have explored suitable alternative employment across the global group to redeploy him overseas rather than terminate his employment as a result of the redundancy in Australia.

Under section 389(2) of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) a termination is not a genuine redundancy if it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances for the employee to be redeployed within the employer's enterprise or an associated entity of the employer. In its defence of the termination, the employer submitted that there were practical difficulties that made overseas