Redundancy claim & compensation lawyers

What are your rights if you've been made redundant?

Some employers may be unaware of their legal obligations to employees. You may have rights to challenge your employer's decision to declare your position redundant, or you may have the right to refuse a position that is offered to you.

The payments proposed by your employer should be checked to ensure that you're paid the right amount and any non-salary rights that you're entitled to (such as bonuses or share options).

Our redundancy lawyers are nationally recognised experts and ideally positioned to ensure you receive all your statutory and contractual entitlements to notice, leave and redundancy pay, as well as non-salary rights.

Who's entitled to redundancy pay?

With the introduction of the National Employment Standards (NES) under the Fair Work Act 2009, most employees are entitled to redundancy pay. In addition, you're entitled to receive notice and a payment equivalent to any accrued but untaken annual leave. Some employees may also be entitled to payment for long service leave and sick leave.

Many employees may also be entitled to payment under the terms of:

• an award
• an enterprise agreement
• a contract of employment
• a company policy.

If you're employed by a state government department, you may also have a right to redundancy pay under state legislation.

Who is not entitled to redundancy pay? 

The following employees are not entitled to redundancy pay under the Fair Work Act:

• employees of a business with fewer than 15 employees
• casual employees
• people employed on a fixed term contract
• apprentices
• people whose employment is terminated as a result of the 'ordinary and customary turnover of labour' (i.e. employers who contract their services to  clients where staff isn't retained after the contract ends, such as commercial security, maintenance and cleaning companies).

The situation becomes more complicated when a business is sold. In most circumstances, if an employee accepts a job with a new employer, the employee is not entitled to redundancy payments from the old employer. Service with the old employer may be recognised for the purpose of long service and other entitlements. However, each situation is different and it's important to seek legal advice from an employment lawyer if you're faced with a situation like this.